I am hoping you can clear up two things for me

1) Replacement horses

You are a vavasour with a 10L estate. Your rouncy dies in combat. Does your constabulary herd replace the rouncy for free, or do you spend 1L on a new rouncy? Obviously if you were a household knight your lord would replace it for you.

2) Double checks to skills

You build a Jousting Arena, which give an automatic Check Lance each year. During the next year, you go adventuring and during the course of the adventure, get a Lance check.
Do you:
a) ignore the jousting arena check as you already gained a check that year
b) During Winter Phase, check for Skill advancement, then apply the check for having a jousting arena and check again?

I have my opinions on each, but would love to hear from other experienced GM's

Greetings!
We have a house rule where you can have up to 2 checks on a skill. Since you have to roll *above* your skill level in order to gain a point in the skill from experience, I allow the player to say "I am using my second check as a +1 to the roll" prior to his rolling. If they do not use the +1, they get a second check on the skill *at the new skill level*.

Some players always use the +1, some always roll twice, some are a mix depending on how high their skill is and how badly they want to improve the skill.

YPMV

Short answers:

1) He gets a replacement charger from the herd.

2) a, he ignores the 2nd check as he would if he'd gain a check again due to a tournament or suchlike.

Thank you Morien

SirUkpyr - an interesting idea. I am a low-power GM so I think I would not do that

This is how I always rule:

1) You get your rouncies and sumpters replaced. Other types like the plafrey, courser and charger are not replaced for free.
2) I ignore any further checks. you can have only one per year.

1) You get your rouncies and sumpters replaced. Other types like the plafrey, courser and charger are not replaced for free.


Out of curiosity, how are the knights able to afford replacement chargers, especially during the Early Phase when the chargers cost £20 each? Claiming them from opposing knights as loot?

Even if no horses die/are crippled in battles/skirmishes/forced marches, the the yearly horse survival roll wipes out half of the horses in 7 years. That is assuming an Ordinary level of maintenance.

Same rules would apply to NPKs as well, so a £300 baron with 30 knights under him would have to come up with roughly 3 replacement chargers per year, just from Winter Phase rolling. This would be an expense of £60, but he has only £30 Discretionary Funds. The economics system in BotE and BotW sidesteps the issue of horse replacement, keeping it out of the book-keeping, as was done in earlier versions as well. I admit that it is not the most elegant way of dealing with the issue, but it does mean that the PKs are not hovering at the edge of total bankruptcy if their warhorse takes a hit.

The other option would be to increase the Horse Herd and hence the estate profits by about £5 per £10 (if a charger) or about £2 per £10 (if a courser is the standard warhorse in Early Phase). This way, the PKs could afford a replacement warhorse in about every 7 years. The downside of this is that it would add a significant random effect on PK finances: some guy might lose a couple of horses and be nigh ruined, while another guy still has his original horse and is flush with treasure. Simply because those winter phase rolls went his way. And that would be another reason why it was decided not to introduce horse replacement in monetary values. Much easier to just handwave it away. As I tell my players, you don't try to take advantage of it by selling your horse at the end of the year, and I won't mess your characters' wealth up.

To add to what Morien has mentioned regarding horses and their replacements:

Of course, YPMV, but having these points/facts known up front gives both gamemasters and players the knowledge of what is glossed over for player ease. If players try to take advantage of the system when such has been done, then they cannot cry "foul" when the gm introduces more reality to offset it.

I tend to keep this out of the bookkeeping as well, claiming the PKs liege has vast resources. If they wish to improve their herds by buying the Horse Herd Investment (BoE), then they get benefits out of it.

Out of curiosity, how are the knights able to afford replacement chargers, especially during the Early Phase when the chargers cost £20 each? Claiming them from opposing knights as loot?

I liked the idea that the charger is rare, especially during the early phases, so hence the rule. They use rouncies most of the time. And yes: the easiest way is through getting loot from a battle. I am currently at 510 with the group and not everyone is riding a charger into battle. I will reduce the price during the coming years, so more people can afford them.

I was just about to post a question about how other handled the horse herd question.

This is how we do it:
We consider the herd sort of a "ladder" (for simplicity). That means that horses are trained in tiers:

In training -> Sumpter -> Rouncy -> Charger
1-2 years -> 3-4 years -> 5-6 years -> 6-10

We chose to see it as the charger in the normal £10 manor is a "spare" that you can pick up if you need to. A charger beyond the one you normally ride to battle.

This means that if you need to replace a charger:
* You can take one charger, then start training one of the rouncys to become a charger.
* It takes 1-3 years to train a rouncy to become a charger.
* If you pick it after 1-2 years, you get a charger with -5 on our horse table.
* If you pick it after 3-4 years, you get a charger with +/-0 on our horse table.
* If you pick it after 5+ years, you get a charger with +5 on the horse table.

This works out pretty well, the players have a backup horse they can take if they need it. But if they loose two horses in a short time-span, they have to revert to a rouncy or a badly trained charger.

If the players find a special horse with great stats, they can use it as a breeder. They then "sacrifice" the horse to the herd. After 7 years, it starts producing new chargers. Every time you pick a new horse you roll 1D20, on 1-5 you get a horse with +10 instead of +5. You can keep "sacrificing" more great horses to make your herd better and better over the years.

This seems reasonable on the surface, and it also allows for the "breeder" program many players want to implement. Consider it stolen for the moment while my players digest this.

This seems reasonable on the surface, and it also allows for the "breeder" program many players want to implement. Consider it stolen for the moment while my players digest this.

Ofcourse. Shareing is careing.

Worth noting. Keep it simple.

We really don't keep track of the "steps" for anything but chargers. One time one player lost several chargers and was just about running out of rouncies to. But that should be the extreme.