The forum has been quiet recently, off--I assume--enjoying the new King Charlemagne book (KC).

So, in the interest of circling back, so to speak, to what extent do you think the mechanics of KC represent refinements toward KAP 6.0?

What might be their impact when ported directly to 5.1/2?

I'll itemize, incompletely:

1. A critical hit deals maximum damage (KC), instead of 2x damage roll (KAP). This makes things easy, as damage will thus be 6x dice. However, it also further increases the importance of SIZ in getting enough dice to base your sixes on, whereas in KAP you could have 2x crit roll ranging in impact from laughable to atomic! (If you use 2x dice in KAP for a crit, then your damage will tend more toward a mean for that number of dice as well.) But... there is a mechanical reason for this change....

2. Armor/shield degradation. KC reduced shield value by 1 for every six rolled in attacking it, or armor by 1 for every two 6s rolled. Based on the quotes this is a deliberate adherence to KC sources in their portrayal of the effects of battle. Mechanically it will reduce the number of combat rounds characters can survive, and constitute a money-sink in repairing armor/replacing shield. Ultimately it will result in more dynamic individual combat and make it go tink, thunk, boom--instead of tink, tink, boom. But! Do y'all think the theme of armor degradation is appropriate to Arthurian myth? Or... to the Early Phases and not later (plate) periods?

3. Minor wound penalties -5 at 1/4 and -10 at 1/2 HP looks new to me. Again, no problem with minor injury imposing skill penalties, especially when major wounds are the kinds of things that require months of healing! Is this thematic to Arthurian myth? My gut says yes: in the longer fights both knights give and take equally, as a rule, so would incur mutual penalties at about the same time.

4. Like the notes on missile weapons. Aiming, shields as cover, no defense action required, rapid fire--the lot of it, very sensible. Bows aren't knightly, but peasants shoot at knights all the time in battle, so they could be ported over directly.

5. Double-feint is back! Another way of dropping effective armor before doing damage to it. If you can't have high SIZ, this at least gives you an option to use what we can pray to Jesu is your massive DEX score? I like it and see no reason not to carry it into KAP directly.

6. Attitudes system. Seems to replace Loyalty(x) aside from Loyalty(Lord); this is a clearer representation, methinks?

7. Oaths! Finally a clear way to gain Honor--through wagers!


That's enough for now. There are quite a few other tweaks scattered about. What stands out to you and how might it be brought into KAP?

--Khanwulf

Reading it now!

I can't really comment on what will or will not be the case for KAP 6, but I can give my personal opinion on those.



1. A critical hit deals maximum damage (KC), instead of 2x damage roll (KAP).


I prefer a flat +4d6, since it doesn't give the high DMG guys even more of a boost. Also, it keeps big monsters / berserkers from instantly pulverising the PKs on a lucky roll, which is an additional benefit from campaign continuation standpoint.



2. Armor/shield degradation.


If someone likes to keep track, why not? We had this as a house rule for one campaign, but frankly, I got so fed up with needing to keep track of the NPCs' shield values, that in the new campaigns, we ditched it.

If you do have it, then I think fixing armor should be a breeze, though: chainmail breakage would be relatively easily manufactured/fixable links, which wouldn't take long. Perhaps not something you do on the battlefield, but any competent blacksmith and you will have your armor fixed in a couple of days, IMHO. As for plate, I can see leather straps being damaged and opening gaps in the armor, but the plates themselves ought to be pretty impervious for most hits. Especially since it is strongly implied that the armor is fixable to s good as new, which a punctured breastplate wouldn't be. So, in this case, I'd expect the damage to be those straps, which again are easily replaced in a day or two. It wouldn't take long nor cost money.



3. Minor wound penalties -5 at 1/4 and -10 at 1/2 HP looks new to me.


This one I dislike. First of all, it is another modifier that I have to track, and it kicks in soon. Also, it does result quickly in a 'first one to land a hit, wins', since after the other guy gets -5, let alone -10, he might as well just surrender since he is going to lose. Not going to be adopted in my games. As for the theme, it is much more heroic for the knight to go down swinging, than be unable to fight back effectively.



4. Like the notes on missile weapons. Aiming, shields as cover, no defense action required, rapid fire


Shields should be cover, but I would just make them -5 to fit the modifier system more easily. Aiming I dislike, since +5 is a big bonus, making criticals much more likely. I'd rather say that aiming gets rid of -5 in range penalties or some such, if I wanted to have it in at all, but I would probably just drop it. Most of the missile fire is aimed, by definition. Rapid fire I could also drop; rapid fire usually means that you are not doing a full pull on the bow, either, so a damage penalty would be appropriate as well. But then we are getting into the 'why would anyone do this ever', so why bother?

I didn't know that missile fire required some defense actions in KAP 5.x?



5. Double-feint is back! Another way of dropping effective armor before doing damage to it. If you can't have high SIZ, this at least gives you an option to use what we can pray to Jesu is your massive DEX score? I like it and see no reason not to carry it into KAP directly.


I dislike it. The reasons it was dropped are as valid now as they ever were. You get -10 to DEX from your armor, so a normal knight will never succeed in this. Even a nigh paragon at DEX 20 has 50/50 chance of succeeding. So the only ones to use this are peasants and other unarmored opponents, who suddenly became somewhat more dangerous, like dexterous Picts. Or you get an even more perverse situations where KNIGHTS start taking off their own armor so that they can use Double Feint. No, I fully think Greg took this tactic off for a good reason, and I hope it is not coming back.



6. Attitudes system. Seems to replace Loyalty(x) aside from Loyalty(Lord); this is a clearer representation, methinks?


No. Attitude [X] is not how YOU feel about X, but how X feels ABOUT you, how much esteem they hold you and how likely they are to help. So it is the flipside of loyalty, in a way. The reciprocal loyalty that the lord might feel towards you. Personally, I am happy enough to just use Loyalty [lord] to indicate that, and I would have picked that Loyalty as the starting base (or Honor, since that is what encompasses loyalty as well in Paladin), not Valorous. But I think it is a neat idea; I'd have to see how it works in game before I can comment farther.



7. Oaths! Finally a clear way to gain Honor--through wagers!


There should be other ways to gain Honor, too, but sure, having at least one mechanism spelled out is nice. I would have tied the Honor Gain to the difficulty/risk of the oath, rather than some Passion roll, though. The bigger the risk of failure, the more it should be worth.

I can't really comment on what will or will not be the case for KAP 6, but I can give my personal opinion on those.

A valued opinion. After all, KC is not KAP. There are different--albeit similar--tropes at work and I'm a firm believer that mechanics support themes in practical play.




I prefer a flat +4d6, since it doesn't give the high DMG guys even more of a boost. Also, it keeps big monsters / berserkers from instantly pulverising the PKs on a lucky roll, which is an additional benefit from campaign continuation standpoint.

Agreed. I'm not sold on max-damage, especially if combined with armor degradation where you count each die as a 6, meaning you take a crit and half your armor is torn off! (Like Ogier, I suppose...)

For my own KAP use, I'm going to try several of your innovations next: balance high-skill combatants down to 20 and 20+X, +5/+10 on passion success, and maybe the +4d6 flat crit damage.




If someone likes to keep track, why not? We had this as a house rule for one campaign, but frankly, I got so fed up with needing to keep track of the NPCs' shield values, that in the new campaigns, we ditched it.

If you do have it, then I think fixing armor should be a breeze, though: chainmail breakage would be relatively easily manufactured/fixable links, which wouldn't take long. Perhaps not something you do on the battlefield, but any competent blacksmith and you will have your armor fixed in a couple of days, IMHO. As for plate, I can see leather straps being damaged and opening gaps in the armor, but the plates themselves ought to be pretty impervious for most hits. Especially since it is strongly implied that the armor is fixable to s good as new, which a punctured breastplate wouldn't be. So, in this case, I'd expect the damage to be those straps, which again are easily replaced in a day or two. It wouldn't take long nor cost money.

I'm also unlikely to use mechanical armor degradation in KAP. Except... maybe a bit on a crit. Otherwise I've just winged descriptions so thematic effects of shield damage are included. That said, those shields are really tough and thick and should only be splintering under repeated axe blows and extended melee. In that case, you can discard and get another--perhaps benefiting from some drama when it no longer shows your emblem!

Fixing armor in the field should be a squire job, backed up by a smith. Portable anvils are a thing as well.



This one I dislike. First of all, it is another modifier that I have to track, and it kicks in soon. Also, it does result quickly in a 'first one to land a hit, wins', since after the other guy gets -5, let alone -10, he might as well just surrender since he is going to lose. Not going to be adopted in my games. As for the theme, it is much more heroic for the knight to go down swinging, than be unable to fight back effectively.

Agreed, thanks to unconsciousness KAP combat is already a first-past-the-post voting contest.

I'm tempted, on this thought, to try something wacky like "start rolling uncon and valor at 1/4 HP, roll at -5 at or below 0 HP; where uncon failure puts you out, and valor failure sends you packing/surrendering."

Trained humans simply don't stop fighting because they're dead unless you make a massive central nervous system hit: spine or brain, or deal incredible skeletal/muscular trauma. Otherwise? They'll go for several minutes before a slowdown in the action permits their head to catch up and go "oh bleep, I'm dead!" Then they die. (I don't feel the need to cite the examples for all this, there are many stories.)



Shields should be cover, but I would just make them -5 to fit the modifier system more easily. Aiming I dislike, since +5 is a big bonus, making criticals much more likely. I'd rather say that aiming gets rid of -5 in range penalties or some such, if I wanted to have it in at all, but I would probably just drop it. Most of the missile fire is aimed, by definition. Rapid fire I could also drop; rapid fire usually means that you are not doing a full pull on the bow, either, so a damage penalty would be appropriate as well. But then we are getting into the 'why would anyone do this ever', so why bother?

I didn't know that missile fire required some defense actions in KAP 5.x?

Ok, duh, this isn't new then. KAP page 118: All ranged attacks are made as unopposed rolls. If the target has a shield, he does not get an opposed roll, but the shield acts as “cover,” imposing a –5 modifier to the attacker’s skill.

I see your points. My impression of rapid fire however is that it is not well-aimed (to your comment that all ranged is inherently "aimed"), may or may not include a full draw, but certainly is intended to suppress as much as to make lethal contact. I'd use it, with the included penalty to skill, on the basis that most of the time it's not going to connect. Versus a knight with a shield that would be -15 skill, and you'll rarely (very rarely) find commoners with bows who sport skills >15.



I dislike [double feint]. The reasons it was dropped are as valid now as they ever were. You get -10 to DEX from your armor, so a normal knight will never succeed in this. Even a nigh paragon at DEX 20 has 50/50 chance of succeeding. So the only ones to use this are peasants and other unarmored opponents, who suddenly became somewhat more dangerous, like dexterous Picts. Or you get an even more perverse situations where KNIGHTS start taking off their own armor so that they can use Double Feint. No, I fully think Greg took this tactic off for a good reason, and I hope it is not coming back.

You're right, it uses modified DEX. That's... perverse. I also note the unarmored benefits to Awareness and Weapon skill (KC)--won't be using that!

Why are these things still being done? Knights in closed helms might have an Awareness penalty, and in all armor I can see a MOV rate penalty (especially for chain), but once trained a knight can fight as effectively in armor as out of it. They will move slower on foot, and they will tire faster, but they'll still put their violence training to unimpeded use. /Rant (Evidence: personal experience, many independent tests since the early days of DnD on this issue.)



No. Attitude [X] is not how YOU feel about X, but how X feels ABOUT you, how much esteem they hold you and how likely they are to help. So it is the flipside of loyalty, in a way. The reciprocal loyalty that the lord might feel towards you. Personally, I am happy enough to just use Loyalty [lord] to indicate that, and I would have picked that Loyalty as the starting base (or Honor, since that is what encompasses loyalty as well in Paladin), not Valorous. But I think it is a neat idea; I'd have to see how it works in game before I can comment farther.

Right, thanks for the correction. I'll have to see how it works in practice, but there looks to be a measure of utility, especially with regards to other areas of life such as the church. Attitude(Church) basically gives you two metrics to track your slide toward excommunication (or not), in addition to Love(God). And both Attitude(family) and Attitude(retinue) track relationships that are otherwise handwaved more (though Loyalty(family) could be considered strictly reciprocal). Attitude(commoners) puts quick meat on the manor management relationships that otherwise take a lot more text in Book of the Estate--in that sense, for KC with no supplements, it's a fine addition.

I'll probably use all of the Attitudes in KAP.



There should be other ways to gain Honor, too, but sure, having at least one mechanism spelled out is nice. I would have tied the Honor Gain to the difficulty/risk of the oath, rather than some Passion roll, though. The bigger the risk of failure, the more it should be worth.

This seems like something that would have to be discussed at the table, in much the same vein as frivolous use of Passion rolls. You don't want a continuous circle of knights, swearing dreadful oaths that they will sharpen the next PK's sword for them! While an Honor Passion makes some sense, I also might invert the scale: a crit = 0, success 1, failure 2, fumble 3. In that sense you swear oaths to shore up your Honor, not to enlarge it even further once you're a paragon of such!

Good thoughts, thanks for the conversation.

--Khanwulf

Agreed. I'm not sold on max-damage, especially if combined with armor degradation where you count each die as a 6, meaning you take a crit and half your armor is torn off! (Like Ogier, I suppose...)


Agreed.



For my own KAP use, I'm going to try several of your innovations next: balance high-skill combatants down to 20 and 20+X, +5/+10 on passion success, and maybe the +4d6 flat crit damage.


Let me know how well they work for you. We like them, obviously. :)



I'm tempted, on this thought, to try something wacky like "start rolling uncon and valor at 1/4 HP, roll at -5 at or below 0 HP; where uncon failure puts you out, and valor failure sends you packing/surrendering."

Trained humans simply don't stop fighting because they're dead unless you make a massive central nervous system hit: spine or brain, or deal incredible skeletal/muscular trauma. Otherwise? They'll go for several minutes before a slowdown in the action permits their head to catch up and go "oh bleep, I'm dead!" Then they die. (I don't feel the need to cite the examples for all this, there are many stories.)


True, but I would be very hesitant to do this; maybe save it for impassioned all-or-nothing fights. The reason is that the UNC rating is a built-in safety valve: you'll go unconscious which means that the enemy stops hitting you and you will remain alive. If you fight at 3 HP, let alone at negative HP, the next hit will put you so far in the negative that you are dead for sure. This will increase PK mortality, which is not a good thing for campaign continuity.



I see your points. My impression of rapid fire however is that it is not well-aimed (to your comment that all ranged is inherently "aimed"), may or may not include a full draw, but certainly is intended to suppress as much as to make lethal contact. I'd use it, with the included penalty to skill, on the basis that most of the time it's not going to connect. Versus a knight with a shield that would be -15 skill, and you'll rarely (very rarely) find commoners with bows who sport skills >15.


All the more underlining how rare this application would be, and hence unnecessary. :P



Why are these things still being done? Knights in closed helms might have an Awareness penalty, and in all armor I can see a MOV rate penalty (especially for chain), but once trained a knight can fight as effectively in armor as out of it. They will move slower on foot, and they will tire faster, but they'll still put their violence training to unimpeded use. /Rant (Evidence: personal experience, many independent tests since the early days of DnD on this issue.)


This is the reason why the unarmored fighting bonus was removed from 5th edition: Greg got fed up (justifiably) with PKs stripping down to fight. People wore armor historically since it was a brilliant idea and made a huge difference IN FAVOR of surviving the fight. For instance, a guy in chainmail can, in principle, take a sword swing and trust his armor to deal with it, while riposting to skewer the unarmored opponent. Whereas the unarmored guy has to protect himself against everything. I do agree that a closed helmet can give an Awareness penalty, but a simple open/nasal helm shouldn't.



I'll probably use all of the Attitudes in KAP.


As said, I probably will just use Loyalty (Lord) in our KAP campaign, modified by whatever 'good karma' the PK has accumulated with the Lord in play & RPed interaction. We also keep track of Hate Landlord from BotM, so we don't need another Attitude there. Since most PKs in KAP don't have Love (God) (I dislike this passion anyway), I'll just use Spiritual trait to see how good odor you generally are with the clergy. Again, modified if something has happened in RP.



This seems like something that would have to be discussed at the table, in much the same vein as frivolous use of Passion rolls. You don't want a continuous circle of knights, swearing dreadful oaths that they will sharpen the next PK's sword for them! While an Honor Passion makes some sense, I also might invert the scale: a crit = 0, success 1, failure 2, fumble 3. In that sense you swear oaths to shore up your Honor, not to enlarge it even further once you're a paragon of such!


True, which is why I thought it should be based on how hard fulfilling the oath is. Sharpening another PK's sword is frivolous and not worthy of Honor, while going after a Dragon could easily be that 3 Honor. This also means that you don't get into the self-perpetuating increase machine of Honor 20+, critting the oath rolls and getting even more Honor out of it, since it is no longer linked to the Passion roll.

The other thing you could do, and something you probably like: Instead of making the Honor gain (and loss!) just a number, make them CHECKS. So if you swear to go after a dragon, you get immediately 3 Honor experience checks to roll when you succeed. This means that someone with Honor 5 will likely get +3, Honor 10 would be likely to get +2, and Honor 15 would likely get +1. Someone with Honor 20 will have to work very very hard to get to 21, which is something I like, whereas with flat +3 Honor, he might push well into 30s. KAP rules (especially Passion) tend to start breaking on 20+.

For Honor loss, it is the opposite: Killed someone for -3 Honor? Roll Honor three times and you get -1 for each SUCCESS. So someone with high Honor will feel the dishonor more keenly, while the villainous Bart the Black Knight's Honor and reputation will not really suffer, since everyone already knows he is a murdering scoundrel. This also means that it is the High Honor PKs who really have to be careful to not do anything dishonorable, while the Low Honor PKs cam play more scoundrely characters. Which is how it should be, but the current Honor Loss rules cause the opposite! The Low Honor PKs are so afraid of losing more honor that they have to act even more honorable than Honor 15 PKs.



Good thoughts, thanks for the conversation.


Thank you too. This is what we are all here for: to chat about (one of) our favorite game(s). :)

True, but I would be very hesitant to do this; maybe save it for impassioned all-or-nothing fights. The reason is that the UNC rating is a built-in safety valve: you'll go unconscious which means that the enemy stops hitting you and you will remain alive. If you fight at 3 HP, let alone at negative HP, the next hit will put you so far in the negative that you are dead for sure. This will increase PK mortality, which is not a good thing for campaign continuity.

Understood and appreciated. My table likes campaign continuity a very great deal, sufficiently so that I have lots of supernatural outs at my finger-tips, if necessary. That said, I'm not fond of wasting PKs with extreme die rolls or unasked-for challenges. While I'm tempted to use such rolls to extend the range of the combat with the available HP, I'd only make that choice if there is 1. unusual healing sources available, and/or 2. great passion at play. The latter is the more important, given that especially if crits are toned down the likelyhood of an atomic damage roll is lessened and armor more likely to step injury down.

It's a balance. I'm tempted, but not convinced of the utility over simplicity. You can tell a good story without the crunch.




This is the reason why the unarmored fighting bonus was removed from 5th edition: Greg got fed up (justifiably) with PKs stripping down to fight. People wore armor historically since it was a brilliant idea and made a huge difference IN FAVOR of surviving the fight. For instance, a guy in chainmail can, in principle, take a sword swing and trust his armor to deal with it, while riposting to skewer the unarmored opponent. Whereas the unarmored guy has to protect himself against everything. I do agree that a closed helmet can give an Awareness penalty, but a simple open/nasal helm shouldn't.

Now I'm convinced that KC is based on an earlier version of KAP, and once the forum is up for it I'll raise some pointed questions there. KC includes significant (+5!) bonuses for knights fighting unencumbered (i.e. without armor), while the source material I've read (Orlando Innamorato and Orlando Furioso so far) have none of that!

Sidebar: I really, really wish that KAP 5.1+ included mention of Bradamante and Marfisa within the listing of fictional examples of lady knights. I can see the fingerprints of these two characters on all portrayals of fighting women in armor since, up to and including Red Sonya! Hopefully they'll be included in KAP 6.



True, which is why I thought it should be based on how hard fulfilling the oath is. Sharpening another PK's sword is frivolous and not worthy of Honor, while going after a Dragon could easily be that 3 Honor. This also means that you don't get into the self-perpetuating increase machine of Honor 20+, critting the oath rolls and getting even more Honor out of it, since it is no longer linked to the Passion roll.

The other thing you could do, and something you probably like: Instead of making the Honor gain (and loss!) just a number, make them CHECKS. So if you swear to go after a dragon, you get immediately 3 Honor experience checks to roll when you succeed. This means that someone with Honor 5 will likely get +3, Honor 10 would be likely to get +2, and Honor 15 would likely get +1. Someone with Honor 20 will have to work very very hard to get to 21, which is something I like, whereas with flat +3 Honor, he might push well into 30s. KAP rules (especially Passion) tend to start breaking on 20+.

For Honor loss, it is the opposite: Killed someone for -3 Honor? Roll Honor three times and you get -1 for each SUCCESS. So someone with high Honor will feel the dishonor more keenly, while the villainous Bart the Black Knight's Honor and reputation will not really suffer, since everyone already knows he is a murdering scoundrel. This also means that it is the High Honor PKs who really have to be careful to not do anything dishonorable, while the Low Honor PKs cam play more scoundrely characters. Which is how it should be, but the current Honor Loss rules cause the opposite! The Low Honor PKs are so afraid of losing more honor that they have to act even more honorable than Honor 15 PKs.


Ah. Ah! You are not wrong, sir. I do like this: it achieves the objective of keeping gains in bound, which you also correctly divined from my suggested hack. We do NOT want passions growing unrestricted!

I also hate how Honor can very easily drop like a stone as PKs get thrown into conflicting situations, and yet they have few to no ways to regain it! (Running around acting prideful and prickley and challenging every passing knight shouldn't be the only way, though it's certainly within theme for later periods!)

As a benchmark, I'd suggest that swearing an oath to do something that conflicts with an individual or group of 3x PK Glory would constitute +3 checks, 2x PK Glory for +2, and equal Glory for +1. Lower than your own Glory merits no check.

Now KC permits only one positive Oath to be active at a time ("I will do X"), while you can have multiple negative Oaths ("I will never retreat from Saxons!")--because negative oaths literally kill you if you break them. Without touching negative oaths for the moment, you could have multiple positive oaths if you treated them not as multiple checks (or Honor awards), but as each a check with a modifier. Thus slaying a dragon would be a check at -3, but only gain you 1 point of Honor if that check fails. Meanwhile, you have an Oath to win the hand of Dame Y and another to uncover the murderers of your lord's cousin, etc.

The risk of this, is however, that it is easier to raise very high Passions. That's balanced, however, by both making the impact of very high Passions lower (+5/+10) and the natural need to fulfill more, very dangerous oaths as PK Glory increases. It might balance out, even as it acts to brake Honor gain over time in the middle ranges.

Or you could just impose a "fulfill one oath per year" limitation. Certainly the benefits of checks would only accrue during Winter.

--Khanwulf

Now I'm convinced that KC is based on an earlier version of KAP, and once the forum is up for it I'll raise some pointed questions there. KC includes significant (+5!) bonuses for knights fighting unencumbered (i.e. without armor), while the source material I've read (Orlando Innamorato and Orlando Furioso so far) have none of that!


Let me amend my statement a bit:
5.0 still had Unburdened giving +5 Weapon and Awareness rolls.
5.1 dropped Unburdened section, but didn't correct Table 6-2, where Unburdened still appears. Alas, back in Encumbrance section, that damn +5 modifier to Weapon rolls for an unarmored knight appears again!
5.2 changed Table 6.2 mention to Unencumbered and referenced back to Encumbrance explicitly.

So while as far as I know, this +5 bonus has been roundly condemned, it somehow is still lurking in the manuscript. I hope 6th edition will finally lay it to rest.



Or you could just impose a "fulfill one oath per year" limitation. Certainly the benefits of checks would only accrue during Winter.


I like this one. Simple and elegant.

Also, when it comes to Glory Gain... I give Honor checks when character acts with conspicuous Honor (such as letting an enemy rearm / get up in a serious duel or real fight/battle) or when he is singled out for a praise in front of the court by his liege/the king for his heroism. Defending your Honor against slanderous accusations would give checks, too, and so forth. It is usually much easier to get checks in Honor than it is to get checks in, say, Hospitality, since Hospitality is more reactive and comes up more seldom. Although I guess it would be simple enough to come up with an excuse of getting a Hospitality check... like "GM, I am putting £2 aside this year so that any traveller who passes by my manor will get a warm meal on my expense if they want to.".

Let me amend my statement a bit:
So while as far as I know, this +5 bonus has been roundly condemned, it somehow is still lurking in the manuscript. I hope 6th edition will finally lay it to rest.


It needs to be staked (with iron), decapitated, and buried upside down at a crossroads at midnight on a solstice.



I like this one. Simple and elegant.

Also, when it comes to Glory Gain... I give Honor checks when character acts with conspicuous Honor (such as letting an enemy rearm / get up in a serious duel or real fight/battle) or when he is singled out for a praise in front of the court by his liege/the king for his heroism. Defending your Honor against slanderous accusations would give checks, too, and so forth. It is usually much easier to get checks in Honor than it is to get checks in, say, Hospitality, since Hospitality is more reactive and comes up more seldom. Although I guess it would be simple enough to come up with an excuse of getting a Hospitality check... like "GM, I am putting £2 aside this year so that any traveller who passes by my manor will get a warm meal on my expense if they want to.".

Pleased to be of service. And thank you for this additional commentary on Honor checks. I worry more about Honor than I do for Hospitality because, as you say, Hospitality comes up less often and is only going to be a relevant passion in those circumstances. Honor applies pretty much all the time, and even when Hospitality could apply, Honor is a back-up. The adventures very often set up circumstances where a misstep costs Honor points, making it a slippery slope to end up with minimal Honor or even disqualification for knighthood!

Yes, you can and should take action to arrest that slide as a PK, but the slope is real and things to grab onto are not (IMO) clearly spelled out in the books.

For increasing Hospitality, however, there is both acting hospitable, as well as modeling the exemplary guest as you stay with others--which will happen frequently while adventuring. This means controlling responses when insulted, behaving modestly (and, chastely), and quickly defending the host or his/her honor. The adventures also frequently put PKs into situations where they can choose to lose Honor or Hospitality, with a narrow (dare I say, sword-thin?) bridge to trod between them.

I mean, clearly the best way to maintain both is to act in an exemplary fashion all the time. :)

--Khanwulf

PS. Of course if you manage that, your family will get you into trouble....

+Move for being lightly armored is fine. +to hit is the best possible bonus, why would I ever wear heavy armor if I can get +5 while using a shield and in some light leather? You know I'm maxing out my Sword skill already so with +5 I will always get a partial.

All this does is make STR matter more since its what determines your encumbrance level and thus how much free armor you can get.

Actually, what armor should do is to fatigue you more quickly and MAYBE limit your running speed. But it has no effect on walking speed and you can definitely still jog in one.

+Move for being lightly armored is fine. +to hit is the best possible bonus, why would I ever wear heavy armor if I can get +5 while using a shield and in some light leather? You know I'm maxing out my Sword skill already so with +5 I will always get a partial.

All this does is make STR matter more since its what determines your encumbrance level and thus how much free armor you can get.

Or we could, yaknow... burn it with fire?

Later periods abandoned heavy armor not because it was keeping them from the awesome badass yearning to get out, but because it slowed them down enough that ranked musketry and men with polearms were a real problem. Horses became more for mobility than shock charges, the positioning of distance fire, and the best defense evolved toward solid cover (breastworks/fortifications) or not being hit.

Or... just dying like a man, frequently enough. Ehem.

The sword went from being a primary weapon after lances were expended, to what you pulled out whilst being charged if your bayonet failed you. It was also a mark of gentlemanly distinction while wandering through polite (and impolite) company, whereas heavy armor (a cuirass) meant you intended real trouble!

So, a knight stripping off their armor will move and swim better, and perform other Dex feats, but is not going to suddenly hit 25% more of the time. They might, on assuming an open-faced helm, spot things better too, but that's a matter of flipping visors around at worst, and not worth the bother of modeling.

--Khanwulf

I agree, that was the point. Killing it with fire is how I handle it but we should still decry it and say why its bad.

I agree, that was the point. Killing it with fire is how I handle it but we should still decry it and say why its bad.

Right. So. Moving on while scattering the ashes....

Anything else in Charlemagne that looks like a mechanics tweak and/or improvement? It seems several that I noted were actually ... not.

--Khanwulf

Anything else in Charlemagne that looks like a mechanics tweak and/or improvement? It seems several that I noted were actually ... not.


Well, they are definitely tweaks and many of them depend on your play style, too.

I'll have to add that the "maximum damage on a critical" has two nice things going for it: It lowers mortality (presumably) since it caps the maximum damage close to what it would have been on average under the doubling rules. And still is with +4d6: 6d6 + 4d6 = average 35, vs. 36 on max 6d6. You don't get those outliers doing 50+ damage. On the other hand, it does mean that some low-damage critical hits are even less of an issue, and it also prevents the PKs from landing a truly amazing criticals of their own to take out big monsters and such. So it depends a bit what you like to have. As said, my beef with it is that it continues to favor large damage: 6d6 damage rises from an average 21 points to 36 points, an increase of 15 points, while 4d6 goes from 14 average to 24, an increase of 10 points. As if 6d6 needed that extra 5 points... Whereas with a flat +4d6, 6d6+4d6 = average 35, and 4d6+4d6 = average 28, the same 7 point difference as it was without the critical, obviously.

Another big tweak that is going on is the Passions, or rather, what each passion covers:

Honor now has old Loyalty (Lord), Honor and Hospitality all rolled into one. Which is a bit too much, I think. Also, see below.

Love (Charlemagne) strangely also encompasses miracles from God, which I don't agree with. Since all the Christian knights also have Love (God) as well (or they would be actively hostile to Christianity*), why not simply use that? Also, since Loyalty is now in Honor, should you be using Love (Charlemagne) or Honor if you are Charlemagne's direct vassal? It gets a bit confusing.

Personally, I would have taken Loyalty out. I can see why the argument is that loyalty and honor are connected, but it should be possible, IMHO, to be an extremely loyal vassal, who at the same time would not blink twice about stabbing his lord's enemy in the back. Also, with now Loyalty as its own thing, you can make Love (Charlemagne) back into Loyalty (Charlemagne) and keep Love (God) for miracles and such, which I would be more comfortable with. However, combining Honor and Hospitality is something I am warming towards more and more: Hospitality is something that is very seldom in play by its own, and breaches against Hospitality tend to lose Honor, too, so why not combine them? This is something I might try to incorporate also in Pendragon, and likely would on the spot if I would be starting a new campaign.

* = There is a list of 'how you feel about the Christianity' based on your Love (God) Passion number, which incidentally is a big difference compared to how it is in KAP, where any passion score is a positive one. I.e. Hate 4 doesn't mean that you actually love the guy, but that you only dislike him. In Paladin, Love (God) 5 makes you anti-Church, plundering it with glee. I can see why that mechanism is there, reflecting the Attitudes**, but I think I would toss that aside, too, making 0 signal lack of faith rather than overt hostility, saving that for Hate (Church), which would be a good passion for pagan Saxons to have.

** Speaking of Attitudes, there is another tweak that I am thinking I might be in favor of, like I said in the beginning. It should be possible for a knight to be in better or worse repute with his lord than his personal loyalty would indicate. We have plenty of literary examples of fine knights serving less upstanding lords. So yeah, this might be another thing worthy of stealing for a KAP campaign.

Morien, I'm with you on there being an option to separate loyalty and honor but the book does a fair job of explaining why. In any case you can slap a Directed Trait on your Honor for the knights who need it. Chances are only one will be going against the grain in that way. I'm all aboard Honor eating Hospitality and never looking back.

I also agree that a low value in a passion is not the same as the antithesis of it. You still get to use it to become inspired* if you want.

Love(Charlemagne) working miracles is just strange. Why should a pious non-Frank not be able to use the miracle rules. There are plenty of saints in the world during this time that may never have even heard of him. Some (such as the Christian Anglo-Saxons) might even Hate him.

*Which is now +5 to ALL skills and +10 on a crit. A pretty big change that hides in a single line of text.

Morien, I'm with you on there being an option to separate loyalty and honor but the book does a fair job of explaining why. In any case you can slap a Directed Trait on your Honor for the knights who need it. Chances are only one will be going against the grain in that way. I'm all aboard Honor eating Hospitality and never looking back.

As discussed in the other thread, Directed Passions have not really been a thing so far in Pendragon. I am not saying that there is not an argument to be made with having Loyalty and Honor be the same, but I simply think that there is plentiful ground for conflict between them and hence good RP.

Also, you obviously haven't had Sir Agravaine or King Mark as your liege lord*. :P Or even Uther. During the Might Makes Right era, I can easily see plenty of conflicts between Loyalty (Lord) and Honor. Do you do the right thing or what is best for your Lord*? Heck, there is even an example in Paladin of one of their number being treated shabbily by Charlemagne and all of them leaving his court. Granted, this one could be Honor vs. Love, but we again have the issue that since many of these people are Counts, shouldn't it be Honor vs. Honor, too? So much easier having the Loyalty as a separate thing.

* Even in Paladin, your Count can be a rotter. Heck, there is a short adventure that does exactly this, pitting your knight's Honor vs. his loyalty to his lord/family, as he is being asked to do a dishonorable thing. So the conflict is already in there, but in the case of the liege, you have Honor vs. Honor. This also leads to silly results: By doing the dishonorable thing** for your liege, your Honor, and hence your LOYALTY decreases. Whereas if you oppose him, your Honor and hence loyalty remains intact (well, for a moment before he casts you out of his service, which is a bit of a campaign hurdle, potentially splitting the group).

** Interestingly enough, while the scenario talks about dishonor etc all the time, the actual mentioned checks and such allow one to complete the killing mission with a Honor check. Which I find somewhat confusing, personally.



Love(Charlemagne) working miracles is just strange. Why should a pious non-Frank not be able to use the miracle rules. There are plenty of saints in the world during this time that may never have even heard of him. Some (such as the Christian Anglo-Saxons) might even Hate him.


Perhaps not so much the Christian Anglo-Saxons (who, if I recall, were pretty friendly with him), but the Byzantines and the Lombards. Anyway, your main point stands: these people would have Love (God), but not Love (Charlemagne), so why not use Love (God) throughout? Also, if there is an NPC clergyman, would he be using Love (Charlemagne) as well? (Of course you can argue that these rules are made for knights in mind, but I dislike having special rules based on the character class. I like more universal rules that I can apply to any NPC, from peasants to ladies and even monsters.)



*Which is now +5 to ALL skills and +10 on a crit. A pretty big change that hides in a single line of text.

I didn't happen to pay attention to that, but given that we already used that as a house-rule (and liked it, Impassioned was way too I-Win button with the +10), I am obviously in favor.

I have also noticed that you benefit from other people's prayers using Love (God).

Hello, here are a few quick answers to some points raised in this very interesting discussion.

1. Crit Damage = Max Damage
Even if this is a matter of personal taste, I implemented the max damage rule to combine with shield & armor damage and to lower the maximum max damage for the PKs’ safety.

2. Shield & Armor degradation
This kind of damage is very frequent in the texts and I think the state of one’s armor must definitely play a role in the game.
The rule is not intended to impoverish player knights.

3. Fatigue per -25% HP (-5 / -10 / unconcious)
Like the previous aspect, this comes up in the epics very often, so I felt I couldn’t ignore it. Wounded knights are simply less effective in combat and should be more careful.
The reverse is also true: in my games, 50% wounded opponents (= half dead!) always surrender to honorable PKs (= who succeed an Honor roll) unless there is a very good reason not to. This is a major advantage of having high honor.
Note that the -5/-10 rule also allows knights to ignore wounded opponents more easily and move on to the next target. Current KAP rules do not allow this, since a 70% wounded opponent (!) is still as big a threat as a completely fresh one.

5. Double Feint
Not my rule and our group never applies the +5 combat bonus. This rule should indeed be corrected.

7. Oaths
The Honor gain is not directly based on the difficulty of the task, simply because “easy” oaths do not qualify as oaths. A solemn vow to God is defined as “important and extraordinary” (positive vow) or it is a lifetime lethal taboo (you die if you break your promise!). These are not frivolous matters.
Contrary to what you seem to think (?), the passion roll for a vow is not necessarily an Honor roll; only the gains are Honor points.
Inverting the reward scale (+0 crit / +1 success / +2 failed / +3 fumble) seems very odd to me. The idea is that very passionate knights have a higher chance of benefiting from solemn vows than others. Paladins may take oaths more often than common knights. And inverting the scale could even backfire, as player knights may abuse in dishonorable acts (which are often more rational = effective in a scenario) when they have a relatively easy way to win the lost points back by taking an oath.
Being able to have only one active oath at a time limits the Honor gains, unless you allow players to take more than one positive oath per adventure / year. And remember that the points are “at stake”, so if the (positive) oath is not fulfilled the points are lost...

Praying for Miracles
The world view of the game is one that favors warriors over priests: Charlemagne is God’s representative on earth, whereas the Pope’s role is to give Charlemagne spiritual guidance. Therefore: (1) Love [Charlemagne] is needed to pray for divine help; and (2) Love [God] allows you to benefit from other people’s prayers.
Some intended consequences are: (1) God favors the Franks. He offers no help to knights from outside the Frankish realm – even Christian Lombards, Byzantines and Britons – unless they have a Love (Charlemagne) passion or unless another Christian prays for them. And (2) Praying for non-Christians or excommunicated Christians has no effect. In other words, there is a three-step hierarchy: (1) pious Franks can pray and be prayed for, (2) other Christians can only be prayed for, and (3) non-Christians never benefit from God’s aid at all because their faiths are simply false.

Low Passion Scores
Love [Charlemagne] and Love [God] are mandatory for all player knights. Low scores indicate evilness, and you are right in saying that this is not entirely logical. The low value descriptions are meant to show players where they should not tread. Still, a short explanation:
Leaving the Christian faith is never an option in the epics (even the most wicked Frankish villain remains a Christian), so a low Love [God] score indicates overt defiance to God in a sort of double bind (“love-hate”). Even if the rules allow them to, in all probability these knights will not often pray for divine assistance (and God usually won’t listen).
Much the same holds for Love [Charlemagne]. Even his fiercest Frankish opponents recognize his role as a ruler chosen by God. Therefore, rebels and traitors must get along without God’s aid and will not inspire for Charlemagne even if they have a positive score.

Honor (= Honor + Loyalty + Hospitality)
To me, Hospitality is part of Honor. In the epics, no honorable knight does not respect the codes of hospitality – even villains and peasants do so.
Honor also supercedes loyalty. An Honor-Loyalty conflict (i.e. knights performing a dishonorable act out of loyalty), can only arise if the lord himself is dishonorable. As dishonorable acts committed in the name of one’s liege dishonor that same liege, honor dictates that one acts against the lord’s will – for his own good/honor. As mentioned, this paradox is at the heart of the short adventure “The Wrathful Lord”. A formal challenge to their opponent (= “I must fight you because my lord commanded me to do so, even if I disagree”) preserves the PKs’ honor, whereas an ambush is simply dishonorable. The bottom line is that dishonorable acts loose honor, even if performed out of loyalty. In the scenario it will be almost impossible to maintain both Honor and Attitude [lord].

Hi Ruben! Good to get you involved in the discussion. Many of the points you raise are in the book as well, and I certainly bow to your great expertise with the source material in question. I quite enjoyed reading the different storylines in the Paladin timeline, especially since I have not really looked into the Charlemagne romances myself, and I look forward to the adventures, too. A lot of my critique is more play-style dependent and the amount of fiddling I want to do in my own campaign.

A couple of very quick comments below.



2. Shield & Armor degradation
This kind of damage is very frequent in the texts and I think the state of one’s armor must definitely play a role in the game.
The rule is not intended to impoverish player knights.


How do you feel about the point I raised, that it should be easier to fix? This way, it still is damaged in the heat of the moment, but once the PKs have time to camp out, they can fix their armor. I don't think it should take all the way to the Winter Phase, although if one is playing just one scenario per year and ends the session with the Winter Phase, then it obviously matters much less.



3. Fatigue per -25% HP (-5 / -10 / unconcious)
Like the previous aspect, this comes up in the epics very often, so I felt I couldn’t ignore it. Wounded knights are simply less effective in combat and should be more careful.
The reverse is also true: in my games, 50% wounded opponents (= half dead!) always surrender to honorable PKs (= who succeed an Honor roll) unless there is a very good reason not to. This is a major advantage of having high honor.
Note that the -5/-10 rule also allows knights to ignore wounded opponents more easily and move on to the next target. Current KAP rules do not allow this, since a 70% wounded opponent (!) is still as big a threat as a completely fresh one.


I see your point, but I still feel this kicks in too soon. Instead, I might entertain -5 at half hit points, which is also the limit where one is usually considered healthy/unhealthy. If the knights can be up and about without aggravation, that implies to me that they are not really hindered by their wounds. Also, this gives them a bit more time to take some minor wounds. Also,-10 is a huge penalty. You pretty much have to surrender at that point, since you are about to lose regardless. In effect, it becomes the new unconscious limit.



5. Double Feint
Not my rule and our group never applies the +5 combat bonus. This rule should indeed be corrected.


Yeah, I figured that was probably legacy stuff.

HHow do you feel about the point I raised, that it should be easier to fix? This way, it still is damaged in the heat of the moment, but once the PKs have time to camp out, they can fix their armor. I don't think it should take all the way to the Winter Phase, although if one is playing just one scenario per year and ends the session with the Winter Phase, then it obviously matters much less.

If you feel it's too difficult to repair armor during a scenario, then you should indeed make it easier. Usually, unless the PKs wander about in the wilderness, they can always call on somebody to repair their armor. The speed of repair is resolved by an Attitude roll. Even a failure means the armor will get repaired, it just takes more time than otherwise.
A crit indicates that the damaged armor is exchanged for a new one at max protection value. It generally pays to have a good reputation.
Still, my richer players have 2 or even three sets of armor. Just like squires, really, it's always useful if you can afford some spares.

The -5/-10 penalties due to HP loss assure that combat is quick and less lethal. If you prefer it otherwise, you could indeed lower the threshold to -5 at 50% HP, I guess.

Coming back to this a bit late, but would also like to thank you Ruben for weighing in.

1. Yes, it was clear that the intent was to spike armor damage on a crit, as well as bound the upper limits of damage into a more consistent midrange. Do you have any comments on the main complaint associated with this? That it makes SIZ even more important than it already is? You either have those damage dice to roll, or you don't, after all!

2. Since Paladin came out I've read ... more of the source texts than I should have, frankly. Mostly Innamorato and Furioso, but still. And yes, armor damage, exhausted opponents and the like seem to be more of a trope in KC than in the sources for KAP--where knights are little energizer bunnies until they stop fighting and fall over.

3. Again with the tropes. A counter mechanical proposal? For every point of HP under 50%, apply a -1 penalty. That should have you well and truly weaving by the time you hit uncon threshold. Basically: unhealthy == penalty or naptime.

5. Would you mind posting what you recommend as the corrected text? Could we expect an errated version of the book, later?

7. So basically, paladins and other highly passionate knights (since Honor is not the exclusive trait to check) will tend to acquire more Honor over time, faster, by swearing dreadful oaths. How do you propose to deal with the unbounded acquisition of Honor that will inevitably occur in play? Rocking +10 to skill is cool until it's done all the time thanks to 39+ Honor. I suppose that guy (or gal, um, Marfisa?) is the stuff of legends and wins contests versus Roland, though.

I actually found it clear that for the sake of the [supernaturally-driven] setting Charlemagne is especially blessed and serves as an artificial focal point for divine favor in wholely unrealistic (and unscriptural) ways.

--Khanwulf

PS. Dedicated subforum? Soon?

Ad 1) If some consider the max damage rule for crits make SIZ more important, then so be it. I've tried to make APP also more important. And DEX. Much will depend on how much fighting you do during a campaign, of course. The more fighting, the more important SIZ becomes. But then again, putting points in a skill like Swimming could also save your life one day.

Ad 3) I actually considered that possibility, but the KAP game mechanics usually fall into 4 categories (crit, succes, fail, fumble), so I thought it would be more elegant to divide State of Health into four sections as well (0, -5, -10, unconscious). It's also a bit simpler and easy to remember. It's the best tested new rule, which I've applied for over 15 years now, and also one of the best accepted by my players.

Ad 5) The same as before but without the attack bonus for unarmed fighters?

Ad 7) First of all, I've never seen players with 25+ Honor because of oaths. No matter how high your Honor is, if you swear an oath and then fail to accomplish it, you will LOOSE the points (or DIE in case of a negative vow). In a general sense, I feel that GMs should make it hard to maintain high Honor. Many things players would want to do to solve problems are dishonorable, and Honor often conflicts with other passions. Use it to challenge your player knights.