Hi,

I'm a relatively fresh Pendragon GM who is just rebooting using Book of Uther and Book of the Estate. I've listened to a complete playthrough of GPC (Esoteric Order podcasts) and have run 485-490 to a group who had never heard of the game but fell in love. We made a ton of mistakes though and the players were excited to start over from the new beginning with all the material.

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the estate system. On the one hand it seems very simple, but then again there is tons of minutiae in there and I feel it might be making me think it's more complex than it is. There are tables which show exactly where a 10£ manor's money goes, but when I look at the estate sheet I get lost. I feel like there isn't a place for half the thing on that table. So what goes where?

Second, I'm using the yearly event/solo/kin event tables I'm sure many of you are familiar. So say a PK get's a 1£ parcel of land. For keeps (grant?). Where does that go? Does it increase servitium debitum or would that be free income? How about an inheritance of 2£ of land? Same deal?

Third, You can only have one improvement that has the "space" requirement per 10£ of... land? Assized Rent? Does that have to be a 10£ lump of land or do outliers count as well?

Fourth, what happens when a PK dies and the manor passes to heir? Do improvements and all other sources of free income get lumped into assized rent now? Effectively increasing servitium debitum by a whole bunch and dropping free income to negligible.

Fifth, I don't know, but being this confused I must have missed something else. Please tell me where you made mistakes so I may learn from your experience.

sixht, are there any decent excel sheets for running estates?

I'm a relatively fresh Pendragon GM who is just rebooting using Book of Uther and Book of the Estate. I've listened to a complete playthrough of GPC (Esoteric Order podcasts) and have run 485-490 to a group who had never heard of the game but fell in love. We made a ton of mistakes though and the players were excited to start over from the new beginning with all the material.


Welcome! As long as you are having fun, you are doing fine. :)



I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the estate system. On the one hand it seems very simple, but then again there is tons of minutiae in there and I feel it might be making me think it's more complex than it is. There are tables which show exactly where a 10£ manor's money goes, but when I look at the estate sheet I get lost. I feel like there isn't a place for half the thing on that table. So what goes where?


You don't have to care about the minutia. The whole Production and servants and raw materials thing is ignored in the record sheet, don't worry about it.

Every source of income should have with it a footnote if it is not counted as Assized Rent (AR). Additional Income (AI, not the best possible label, admittedly) is income from primarily court fees, and some other payments made to the estate holder. It carries with it the requirement of Servitium Debitum, which is why it is summed up with Assized Rent to form Customary Revenue, from which the Servitium Debitum is calculated. Note that if you are not tracking Production in detail, this distinction between AR and AI is immaterial, it doesn't matter at all.

Free Income, by contrast, is income that does not carry Servitium Debitum obligation with it, which is why it needs to be recorded separately. Most often this is income from improvements built by the current holder of the land, so it was not part of the estate when the Servitium Debitum was assessed. Sometimes it may be some kind of extra bonus that the liege gifts to the estate holder, but this is quite rare.

In the end, the only two numbers you are interested in are Customary Revenue (how big an army do you have and what is your default Standard of Living) and Discretionary Funds (how much income do you have to splurge on your pet projects). Everything else is only important if you really really really want to delve into the details.



Second, I'm using the yearly event/solo/kin event tables I'm sure many of you are familiar. So say a PK get's a 1£ parcel of land. For keeps (grant?). Where does that go? Does it increase servitium debitum or would that be free income? How about an inheritance of 2£ of land? Same deal?


Those who have followed my posts on the forum know that I am very much again throwing land at the player-characters without a good reason, so I would be grumbling about such an unofficial kin event and changing it in my campaign. :P

However, should you use it, then yes, the Servitium Debitum is expected. You'll just add it to the Assized Rent, which means only 10% of it would become Discretionary Funds. Same deal as with any other land property. Your original land holding is not reassessed at this point, but the new parcel is. You want to have that £1 land? Good, I'll be expecting one spearman from it, thank you very much.



Third, You can only have one improvement that has the "space" requirement per 10£ of... land? Assized Rent? Does that have to be a 10£ lump of land or do outliers count as well?


By strict reading of the rules, you are supposed to build improvements only on your caput major, so no, outliers would not qualify.

One big reason behind the space rule was to prevent constant re-investing of the profits for more and more improvements, which is ahistorical, counter to the spirit of the game, and unbalancing the game. Improvements were not primarily meant as money-making machines but ways to give each estate their own particular flair.



Fourth, what happens when a PK dies and the manor passes to heir? Do improvements and all other sources of free income get lumped into assized rent now? Effectively increasing servitium debitum by a whole bunch and dropping free income to negligible.


Improvements, yes. They get lumped with the Assized Rent as the estate is re-assessed. However, it is not useless. Sure, you lose that, say, £10 of free income, but you will get another household knight, 3 foot soldiers, +£1 Discretionary Funds, +£1 Standard of Living, and extra staff and servants. In short, you are a much more influential man. Money isn't everything.

Yeah, Book of Estate is kind of a hot mess in my (and my group's) opinion... I'm sure I've been doing it wrong, but my group has managed to come to some form of a workable place for it. It really needs a step-by-step build of an Estate and a winter walk-through to really solidify the rules. It's made worse by the "sample estates" not actually following any of the rules provided in building an estate.

First of all, for me, it was easier to write up an Estate Block to put all of the actual information together in an easy to read setup. So, for example one of my Knights has taken control of Buckholt Manor on the King's road between Sarum and Winchester (Camelot). For Buckholt, I have the following writeup:

Buckholt
Assized Rent: 50£ (50 Annual Glory, 1 Lot = 5£, 5£ Endowment to Church)
Fortifications: Small Stone Manor House (DV 2)
Space Available: 5
Workforce Improvements per Year: 5
Improvements: Exquisite Oak Grove (Good Boar Hunting, Check Indulgent, 1£ Income), Small Church (5£ Endowment with Advowson, check Worldly and roll Spiritual and Religion Annually, 5 Glory Annually)
Discretionary Income: 5£ (forfeited if damaged)
Improvement Income: 1£
Improvement Maintenance: 0£
Total Annual Discretionary Income: 6£ (if undamaged)
Total Annual Glory: 55
Total Defense Value: 2
2 Household Knights
10 Footmen/5 Garrison

That, I've found, pretty much puts all the details an Estate Owner needs in one spot. It tells them how much space they have to use (1/10th of the Assized Rent, in answer to question 3), their Fortifications, Improvements, and final Discretionary Income/Glory. Each year this Lord can build up to 5 Improvements (1 Improvement for every 10£ of Assized Rent) without needing to purchase extra workers (which increases the cost of the Improvement by 50%). I've chosen not to even deal with Hundred Courts Profits or County stuff as it really isn't clearly laid out and I'd rather make this easier for the group to manage.

As far as your questions go:
The example ledger of where the money goes is, as far as I can tell, just there as an FYI. All that really matters in the ledger in the end is how much the Knight gets in Discretionary Income. Beyond that, it's just nice to know.
Second, I'm not familiar with those tables, so I can't answer. I know Book of the Warlord covers owning lots of disparate properties better than Book of the Estate which is about contiguous land.
Third, as mentioned above, Size is off of Assized Rent (page 76 under Limitations)
Fourth is completely unclear as provided by the book. I've ruled that the Rent only changes when the King/Duke/Earl reassesses the land for taxes. That hasn't happened yet, so I haven't dealt with it yet. When it happens, I will probably move the existing Improvements to a "Holdings" category, roll up their Income to the Assized Rent, remove all Maintenance costs for the Holdings (since they're now covered in the yearly Rent/Render), and then let the Knight build all new Improvements (even more of the same they already had) as per the normal rules.
As far as an excel sheet, I haven't seen one. I considered trying to make one, but, like I said, I barely understand the system to begin with... and I've really tried to make sense of it.

Yeah, Book of Estate is kind of a hot mess in my (and my group's) opinion... I'm sure I've been doing it wrong, but my group has managed to come to some form of a workable place for it. It really needs a step-by-step build of an Estate and a winter walk-through to really solidify the rules. It's made worse by the "sample estates" not actually following any of the rules provided in building an estate.


That is because the sample estates are not examples of the 'random' generation of the estate but Gamemaster-customized.

If you follow the Saxon's Head example in the text itself, it follows the rules to the T (alright, there is one foot soldier too many going by the strict 55% rule, but the GM rounded up). Also, all the sample estates SHOULD follow the rules as far as the hundred court profits and how the Assized Rents and Additional Income goes.

I do admit that we were somewhat hampered by the fact that we were playing catch-up since we were revising an already published book and didn't want to make too many layout changes. I think BotW barony creation chapter is better. More complicated because honours are more complicated, but more clearly presented. We are talking about the revised version, right?

Any particular points of confusion that I could help to clear up?



First of all, for me, it was easier to write up an Estate Block to put all of the actual information together in an easy to read setup. So, for example one of my Knights has taken control of Buckholt Manor on the King's road between Sarum and Winchester (Camelot). For Buckholt, I have the following writeup:


That is a nice write-up and really, it is all you need. :) It is not any more complicated than that.



I've chosen not to even deal with Hundred Courts Profits or County stuff as it really isn't clearly laid out and I'd rather make this easier for the group to manage.


The Hundred Court Profits are just 3% of Assized Rent as Additional Income. So in your example, £1.5. But it is totally OK to just ignore it. It is just 3% and won't matter in the great scheme of things. Or even ignoring the difference between Assized Rent and Additional Income, which only matters because Production = Assized Rent rather than = Customary Revenue.



Fourth is completely unclear as provided by the book. I've ruled that the Rent only changes when the King/Duke/Earl reassesses the land for taxes. That hasn't happened yet, so I haven't dealt with it yet. When it happens, I will probably move the existing Improvements to a "Holdings" category, roll up their Income to the Assized Rent, remove all Maintenance costs for the Holdings (since they're now covered in the yearly Rent/Render), and then let the Knight build all new Improvements (even more of the same they already had) as per the normal rules.


p. 90: "Old investments built by his predecessors are counted as part of the Customary Revenue of the estate, however, and only 10% goes to Discretionary Fund (already included)."

My take is that the horse herd or whatever that the Father built will still take up the pasturage, and new space doesn't magically appear. Yes, that does mean that the place cannot keep on building land-intensive investments, so better stick with the one you like. As for the maintenance of the Improvements, I'd handle them as they are handled on page 72: you'll have to pay for the hospitals or whatnot out of your Discretionary Funds, if you want the Glory and the Checks; the Liege (Baron or King) won't pay it for you.

However, if you want to play it differently, I can give you my word that I won't show up at your game night to confiscate your books. :)



As far as an excel sheet, I haven't seen one. I considered trying to make one, but, like I said, I barely understand the system to begin with... and I've really tried to make sense of it.

Really? Based on your write-up and the answers you gave, you have understood the important bits of it.

You make a good point about Space vs my concept of "Holdings". I'd say Space is used and never regained. That does bring up a interesting point, though. What if the Assized Rent goes up a Librum? Does the Estate gain more Space?

The way I was concieving it, if PK had a 21 year old orchard, an armory, and a mellisarium on a 30£ Estate and then passed the estate to his Son, the Mellisarium and Orchard would become "Holdings" and the Assized Rent would become 39£ but the Maintenance/Benefits for the Holdings would go away. The son could then build a second Mellisarium (on his last bit of available Space, since the orchard and old mellisarium still take up the space) to get the Energetic Check and addtional 1£ of income.

As far as "other questions", I guess I need to understand better the difference between Customary Revenue and Assized Rent. When I determine the Discretionary Income of an estate is it based off of Rent or Revenue? Are Court Profits added into "Discretionary Income" or are they already included? Plus, it's really unclear which estate gains the 100 Courts Profit... is that just GM Fiat?

As far as the Saxon's Head example... that's all well and good, but it's never fully statted out, just put in small portions. Traditionally you'd expect to see the filled out Estate Sheet for the example Estate to help organize how the design becomes reality. Actually, the example feels like it jumps around a lot and never fully uses the system as designed. For example, it says Saxon's Head has an Abbey (by player/GM fiat) but it doesn't say if that abbey reduces the Assized Rent due to the Endowment (or even what the endowment is) or if it includes Advowson. It's just little things like that which make it a bit confusing to fully understand. I am using version 1.3.2 if that means anything.

You make a good point about Space vs my concept of "Holdings". I'd say Space is used and never regained. That does bring up a interesting point, though. What if the Assized Rent goes up a Librum? Does the Estate gain more Space?


No, the space is fixed (IMHO). The point is, the whole issue of the space is a rule of thumb. A GM can say: "By the way, your estate has 10 spaces available instead of the normal 5. Have fun." Having 1 space per £10 made it easy and not overpowered. If the estate already has a sheep herd or something else from a random roll when it is being CREATED, then I would throw that in for free. But once the estate is created and enters play, then it is fixed. Any additional land you'll have to beg, steal or conquer.



The way I was concieving it, if PK had a 21 year old orchard, an armory, and a mellisarium on a 30£ Estate and then passed the estate to his Son, the Mellisarium and Orchard would become "Holdings" and the Assized Rent would become 39£ but the Maintenance/Benefits for the Holdings would go away. The son could then build a second Mellisarium (on his last bit of available Space, since the orchard and old mellisarium still take up the space) to get the Energetic Check and addtional 1£ of income.


Ah, you make a small mistake here. You can't let the maintenance vanish unless you adjust the income of the armoury, too. As you can see, the Armoury's income is £5, BUT it takes £4 to operate. Thus, the true profit is £1. So what you should write down is Assized Rent £34 (Mellisarium, Orchard (fully mature), Armoury), and then gain the Energetic check (since you have the Mellisarium already; again, it is not going anywhere).

You are quite correct that you could build a second Mellisarium, in which case it would give +£1 Free Income, but it wouldn't give an additional Energetic check since you already get that from the old one.



As far as "other questions", I guess I need to understand better the difference between Customary Revenue and Assized Rent. When I determine the Discretionary Income of an estate is it based off of Rent or Revenue? Are Court Profits added into "Discretionary Income" or are they already included?

This is in pages 33 and 36.

Customary Revenue = Assized Rent + Additional Income (includes court profits, but NOT Free Income which is its own category)
Space & building is calculated from Assized Rent.
Servitium Debitum, Standard of Living and Discretionary Funds is calculated from Customary Revenue.

Discretionary Funds = 10% of Customary Revenue + Free Income (mostly from new improvements)

So the example of £50 Assized Rent + £1.5 Additional Income (hundred court profits) + £4 of Free Income (your improvements in above) would result in Customary Revenue of £51.5 and £4 of Free Income (not part of Customary Revenue).
Servitium Debitum: 5 knights and 15 foot soldiers for the even £50 + 1 or 2 foot soldiers for the remaining £1.5, depending which way the GM feels like rounding it.
Discretionary Funds: £5.15 + £4 (from Free Income) = £9.15

The only difference between Assized Rent and Additional Income is that the latter doesn't contribute to Production, which is generally not that important to track anyway, as it is just the servant staff.

Does that help to clarify things?



Plus, it's really unclear which estate gains the 100 Courts Profit... is that just GM Fiat?


As a simplification, it is assumed that each estate caput major is its own hundred and all of them come with the hundred court profits attached. The GM can of course rule otherwise.



As far as the Saxon's Head example... that's all well and good, but it's never fully statted out, just put in small portions. Traditionally you'd expect to see the filled out Estate Sheet for the example Estate to help organize how the design becomes reality. Actually, the example feels like it jumps around a lot and never fully uses the system as designed. For example, it says Saxon's Head has an Abbey (by player/GM fiat) but it doesn't say if that abbey reduces the Assized Rent due to the Endowment (or even what the endowment is) or if it includes Advowson. It's just little things like that which make it a bit confusing to fully understand. I am using version 1.3.2 if that means anything.

1.3.2 is the newest one, so you are good there. As for the example, I think there was some talk about it, but I forget why it wasn't done. May have been the layout issues of adding pages or something like that.

As a general rule of thumb, there is no such thing as free lunch, IMHO. If you have an abbey with advowson, then yes, that advowson should be taken off from your estate: it has become part of the abbey. In the example, this is a pagan monastery (whatever that is). No maintenance costs are mentioned, so I'd rule that the temple/monastery/church is supported by donations/tithes from the peasants. Also, this means that the only bonus the estate holder is getting is that additional clerical advisor, not any of the checks that come from religious buildings built later as Improvements.

Thank you Morien (and cheeplives) for your responses. I believe I have things in hand well enough to handle the estates in my own way at least.

I'm just wondering if there is a difference in RAW/RAI (rules as written/rules as intended).

BoE p. 76 says
These Improvements require space to build: Horse Herd, Leprosarium, Mellisarium, Orchard, Sheep Herd, Vaccary, Vineyard. One new Improvement per £10 Assized Rent can be accommodated. Beyond that, an Improvement can only be made on arable land, reducing income by £2 per used space.

Let us say we have a brand new player knight with his 10£ estate.
-He builds an orchard (Income: Years 1–4: £ -1; years 5–8: 0; years 9–12: £ 1; years 13–16: £2; year 17 +: £3.).
-He also has access to a medium sized river and adds three weirs and a fishery. (£1 income ach with the fishery)
-He adds an armory for £1 income since he has no iron mines
-He builds a coneygarth for £2 income
-His lord grants him the right to build and toll a ferry across the river. Lets say £1 income.
= £10 free income after 17 years when the orchards have fully matured

Say he got married after a few years. 2k glory, loyalty 16, +1 for some exemplary deeds on the battlefield, £5 gift and success on courtesy and he could roll a 16 on the random wife table. ((1d3+3) x£0.5 land.) Lets say £2.

So the dowry carries servitium debitum that gets added to the manor's right away, but improvements are not yet at this point. When the knight dies after a long and prosperous life, just when his son turns 21 and inherits, then the whole estate is reassessed. Since we are not keeping track of land value and additional income separately it is now a £22 estate with one "space" requiring improvement and room for another. Am I reading this right?

Ok, enough nitpicking. :) My players loved the yearly events/kin events and solo's for missed play sessions so I'll use them. They are here (https://gspendragon.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/pendragoneventssummerwinter1.pdf) and here (https://gspendragon.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/pendragoneventskin.pdf). I'll keep track of "land" and "other income" separately and allow improvements per £10 of land. I'd consider a small dowry of land to be counted towards this as well unless it is a full estates worth. In that case I might allow the player to move their caput major if the new estate is substantially larger.

Thank you Morien (and cheeplives) for your responses. I believe I have things in hand well enough to handle the estates in my own way at least.


Happy to help. :)



I'm just wondering if there is a difference in RAW/RAI (rules as written/rules as intended).


There shouldn't be and I am of the firm belief that rules lawyers need to be hit with KAP 5.1 as a first warning and then with GPC if they won't learn the lesson the first time! :P



So the dowry carries servitium debitum that gets added to the manor's right away, but improvements are not yet at this point. When the knight dies after a long and prosperous life, just when his son turns 21 and inherits, then the whole estate is reassessed. Since we are not keeping track of land value and additional income separately it is now a £22 estate with one "space" requiring improvement and room for another. Am I reading this right?


Nope. :)

What needs to be kept in mind here is the difference between a CREATION of an Estate, and an Estate already in play.

Once the Estate has been created, that is it. It has a set amount of land. Only way to increase it is to marry well, get rewarded with more land, or conquer it.

The 1 space per £10 Assized Rent is a rule of thumb for the NEWLY CREATED ESTATES.

So, in your example, you would have in the beginning a £10 manor with 1 empty 'slot'. The Orchard fills that slot. Then the PK marries well and gains £2 extra land. Hooray for him. As per the rule of thumb, this land would carry with it 0.2 space (subject to GM approval, and can be adjusted either up or down). Now, 0.2 space doesn't really matter, especially since it is unlikely to be connected to the caput major and hence as per RAW should not be built on, so we can ignore it here. Point being, the Manor is fully built up by the time the son inherits it: it had one space and it is taken by the Orchard. The improvements do not add any land, they just use it (non-arable land in the case of armoury etc). It doesn't magically spawn another space of arable land! :)

Although, again if the GM wishes, he could decide that the liege sees that the father has done well and decides to add some currently unused land (because of the lack of peasants or something) to the manor/estate for the son to build on and carry on the family tradition of improving the land. After all, what the father did in practice was to double the value of land entrusted to him! This should be encouraged, thinks the liege. Carry on good work! (This goes under the heading of being rewarded with more land.)

Now, if that same estate was CREATED by the GM and handed off to the player, then I would say it is a £22 estate that has an orchard and these other improvements already factored in, and 2 empty slots. I would not 'penalize' the player for having an orchard rather than a £22 estate without an orchard, but just throw that in for free. But that is just me. Another GM might rule differently.



I'll keep track of "land" and "other income" separately and allow improvements per £10 of land. I'd consider a small dowry of land to be counted towards this as well unless it is a full estates worth. In that case I might allow the player to move their caput major if the new estate is substantially larger.

That is a reasonable way of doing it, sure. :)

(Psst, some of the Assized Rent may actually be unlisted improvements. For example, a lot of Salisbury manors' Assized Rent is actually coming from sheepfarming. We decided to ignore the distinction, though, in the interests of avoiding that hassle.)

There shouldn't be and I am of the firm belief that rules lawyers need to be hit with KAP 5.1 as a first warning and then with GPC if they won't learn the lesson the first time! :P

I can agree with that. I just want to be prepared when the questions start pouring in.



Nope. :)

What needs to be kept in mind here is the difference between a CREATION of an Estate, and an Estate already in play.

Once the Estate has been created, that is it. It has a set amount of land. Only way to increase it is to marry well, get rewarded with more land, or conquer it.


The 1 space per £10 Assized Rent is a rule of thumb for the NEWLY CREATED ESTATES.

Aha, that distinction was not obvious to me on first reading.


So, in your example, you would have in the beginning a £10 manor with 1 empty 'slot'. The Orchard fills that slot. Then the PK marries well and gains £2 extra land. Hooray for him. As per the rule of thumb, this land would carry with it 0.2 space (subject to GM approval, and can be adjusted either up or down). Now, 0.2 space doesn't really matter, especially since it is unlikely to be connected to the caput major and hence as per RAW should not be built on, so we can ignore it here. Point being, the Manor is fully built up by the time the son inherits it: it had one space and it is taken by the Orchard. The improvements do not add any land, they just use it (non-arable land in the case of armoury etc). It doesn't magically spawn another space of arable land! :)

I did not expect more land to spawn, but the distinction was not made (that I could find). So an avid rules lawyer could easily point and say value = space.


Although, again if the GM wishes, he could decide that the liege sees that the father has done well and decides to add some currently unused land (because of the lack of peasants or something) to the manor/estate for the son to build on and carry on the family tradition of improving the land. After all, what the father did in practice was to double the value of land entrusted to him! This should be encouraged, thinks the liege. Carry on good work! (This goes under the heading of being rewarded with more land.)

I like that train of thought.


Now, if that same estate was CREATED by the GM and handed off to the player, then I would say it is a £22 estate that has an orchard and these other improvements already factored in, and 2 empty slots. I would not 'penalize' the player for having an orchard rather than a £22 estate without an orchard, but just throw that in for free. But that is just me. Another GM might rule differently.

Sure. Also brings up an interesting point. Say a knight does some REALLY spectacular deeds, glory up the wazoo and marries a wealthy heiress. Land in the £20 region or up. It is probably not reasonable to expect that to be and empty lump of land, but rather something like our example here. Maybe with 1 space left if they would move their caput major, but maybe not.

Sure. Also brings up an interesting point. Say a knight does some REALLY spectacular deeds, glory up the wazoo and marries a wealthy heiress. Land in the £20 region or up. It is probably not reasonable to expect that to be and empty lump of land, but rather something like our example here. Maybe with 1 space left if they would move their caput major, but maybe not.

Note that this doesn't actually matter in basic BotE, since it is deliberately set-up so that a £50 starting estate equals any £50 starting estate. That is why there is the word 'new' in front of the investments that can be built: the pre-existing (that is, part of the creation of the estate) investments are not counted.

For example, it says in the sheep herd that many Salisbury's manors are actually £5 from rents and £5 from sheep herds. This would nominally break the rule: you'd only have 0.5 spaces so you are at -4.5 spaces = -£9 => the manor's income is £1. This is obviously silly. The explanation is that the Salisbury's manors have a lot of pasture land which is ill-suited for farming but excellent for sheep grazing. Thus, this £10 manor in Salisbury has space for those 5 sheep herds AND 1 additional empty 'slot' for PK-built investments.

In your example, if it is a newly created estate (i.e. it hasn't been in play before) rather than a PK-built estate which has fallen to an heiress and hence has been featured in play, I would use the same assumption as in above: I don't really care where the £20 Assized Rent comes from, and I would let the PK husband switch his caput major over and build 2 spaces worth of investments and 2 investments each of the non-spacious investments, as per the rules, even if the breakdown of that £20 might involve an orchard and other investments. It is just that as a simplification, I wouldn't have to bother statting it up, and leave the future improvements open for the PK. Granted, this is fully up to the GM, of course. But even in the case of weirs, I'd simply say that the estate has more of the riverfront than the average assumed, and hence can fit in those pre-existing weirs. I might require a building of an extra fishery, though, to keep the Player honest, by claiming that the old one is too small to deal with more than 3 weirs. In other words, if you pay for it, you'll get the benefit.

The whole idea behind limiting both the space and the number of each type of investment is to stop the PKs from just investing over and over again in exponential growth. For example, Coneygarth is £4 to build, £2 income. Once you build the first one, you might as well go for the whole wascally wabbit warren, since you can only get one check in cowardly anyway. So, lets see how that compounds...
1st year = £4 invested, the first Coneygarth built.
2nd year = £2 profit.
3rd year = £4 profit.
4th year = £4 invested for the building of a second one, the first one makes £2 profit.
5th year = £6 profit.
6th year = £4 invested for the building of a third one, the previous two make £4 profit, so £6 again in the treasury.
7th year = £4 invested for the building of a fourth one. Treasury: £2+£6 = £8.
8th year = £4 invested for the building of a fifth one. Treasury: £4+£8 = £12.
9th year = £10 invested for the building of a sixth and seventh one (extras cost +50% so £6 instead of £4). Treasury: £2+£10 = £12.
10th year = £10 invested for the building of a eighth and ninth one. Treasury: £2+£14 = £16.
11th year = £16 for building 10th, 11th and 12th coneygarth. Treasury: £0+£18 = £18.
12th year = £16 for building 3 coneygarths (total 15). Treasury: £2+£26 = £28.
13th year = £28 for building 5 coneygarths (total 20). Treasury: £0+£30 = £30.
14th year = £28 for building 5 coneygarths (total 25). Treasury: £2+£40 = £42.
15th year = £40 for building 7 coneygarths (total 32). Treasury: £2+£50 = £52.
16th year = £52 for building 9 coneygarths (total 41). Treasury: £0+£64 = £64.
17th year = £64 for building 11 coneygarths (total 52). Treasury: £0+£82 = £82.
18th year = £82 for building 14 coneygarths (total 66). Treasury: £0+£104 = £104.
19th year = £100 for building 17 coneygarths (total 80). Treasury: £4+£132 = £136.
20th year = £136 for building 23 coneygarths (total 103). Treasury: £0+£160 = £160.

So, after 20 years, the PK would have free income of £206, more than most (if not all) Dukes and Counts, despite starting from a mere £10 manor and £4 investment. Sure, the reassessment once the PK dies and his heir takes over addresses some of this problem (the Player would be smart to set aside enough money for the Relief), but it doesn't change the fact that he by then (lets assume 20 years) would have over a hundred coneygarths plaguing the countryside, and the original £10 manor is now worth £216, a modest barony. In other words, we should see investments multiplying the value of the land about x20 per generation. This is clearly, unarguably wrong and unplayable, and will destroy campaign balance in a hurry, especially if another player has instead splurged his £4 loot share to feasting (as a proper knight would have been more likely to do!). The coneygarth investment by itself is bad enough, giving about x10 the original investment back over a generation, but at least it comes with a cost of a cowardly (and lustful, for christians) checks. Most of the other investments have been deliberately tailored to 10:1 or so return of investment, so that yes, you will see some benefit over a generation, but not so much that it would wreck the game. Someone spending that £10 for a better armor, say, will benefit from that better armor for 10 years before you catch up.

(Actually, I just noticed that I made a small mistake in the above... The multi-year treasury should be halved, so it takes a couple of years longer to get to 100+ coneygarths if we didn't have any limits in place. And 19 years to get to that new armor...)

The second reason for limiting the number of individual investments, not just the space-consuming ones, was to stop the Players from simply spamming one investment (usually the one with the highest rate of return, although I think we plugged that rabbithole with the space requirement) over and over again. Much more fun when they will have to diversify a bit.

In any case, the above rules for investments means that it is pretty hard to upset the applecart with investments. Sure, if you pour £100 into your £10 manor, you will end up doubling its income in a generation, and probably accumulate a healthy treasury from the profits, too. So it is still worthwhile to do, but you will end up with a £20 fully-built-in manor rather than a £200 barony.

If you allow expansion after a generational shift, then it depends a bit how you allow it. If you give a blank slate £20 estate to the son, and allow him to start from scratch again, then it may double per generation, so across about 80+ years of GPC, you might see this: £10 -> £20 -> £40 -> £80 -> £160. Which is a bit too rich for my blood.

If you allow limited new expansion (i.e. calculate the new limits based on the total new Assized Rent, but count the pre-existing improvements, too), then it is much more agreeable, adding about the initial value per generation, so you'll get this: £10 -> £20 -> £30 -> £40 -> £50. Now this is something I could live with (on small scales). However, this still has the very annoying mercantile outlook which is saying that the best way to get ahead (in landholding & money, at least) in Pendragon would be to invest and sit at home, avoiding dying to rack up as big a treasury as possible to give to your son. I prefer to encourage the PKs to take risk for glory and be REWARDED with new lands (either with or without heiresses). It would also have an unfortunate implication for the NPK land investments: even if they are limited to their caput major, about £100 in value, it does mean that minor barons would claw their way up to Rich Barons (x5 estate value), whilst average Barons would not rise as much in proportion, only about doubling theirs. This is of course even worse with the doubling of the value at each generation, which would basically make every baron, count and duke to be on the same level. (The GM can of course control the NPK land investment and simply not allow it.)

So, my view is: the land is fixed at the start. So over the whole campaign, you can build one investment per £10. This tends to mean that over the whole campaign, you will upgrade from £10 to about £20. This makes investing more of a nice thing to have, rather than a must have. (In our campaign, investment is actually further hampered by the fact that we are using BotManor raid destruction tables, so especially during wartime, those investments have a habit of going bye-bye. This acts as a further brake on investments. On the other hand, we don't use the 50% treasury rule for simplicity, so it is easier to accumulate profits, so that one has an opposite, encouraging effect.) As for the NPKs, this just means that their caput major might double in value, but here I am quite happy to say that it has already been maxed out by previous holders. No need to worry about this!