Morien
06-14-2018, 10:38 PM
I ended up reading the Paladin character generation system in more detail, due to commenting on importing those rules to KAP in the House Rules section. The following are simply my preferences for any Paladin campaign I might GM. I am happy to recognize that people's tastes vary. I am more of a 'design a character' type of guy, rather than 'lets see what the dice gods give me', and I dislike having big differences between player characters at the start, simply because one of the rolled extremely well and the other had crap dice luck.
Full disclosure:
I dislike the extremes of 2d6 distribution and I would be much happier with 1d6, if I were to roll at all. For example, rather than the 2d6+3 in Attributes & Traits, I'd prefer 1d6+7. 1d6 gives slightly smaller standard deviation, but most importantly, it limits the extremes: your maximum difference from the mean is +-2.5, whereas with 2d6, it is +-5. While repeated extreme outliers are rare, it only takes one roll of 5 to make the character almost fatally crippled, whereas 8 is more playable.
I admit I also dislike the fact that the starting skills are rolled. While I can see an argument for it (people, both teachers and students, can have different interest), for me it pales in comparison to the simplicity of having set starting values of KAP. (Which could be simplified even further: just have everything start at 3.)
While I liked the idea of Father's class in KAP's 4th edition & now its adjusted form in Paladin, I do worry a bit that it could be potentially very unbalancing to the game, if someone rolls a count's son, especially as the character is automatically the eldest son. Granted, it is a low chance, 1/80, and one can alleviate it by making him a son of a bishop and hopefully forestall any inheritance that way. Or just make him illegitimate, but maybe acknowledged (or at least the father did pull some strings for him). Again, taking him out of the inheritance,but still maintain those family connections and upbringing. The skill boni, while extensive, are not insanely so. A few years' headstart. I do like the fact that Paladin keeps Mercenary Knight as the lowest background, rather than drop all the way to non-knightly classes. Like said, I don't like to have huge differences between starting PKs. It might also impel me to change the son number for the vassal knight to a younger son, so that they would be out of the direct line of inheritance. With a Lord, I would rather go for a bastard, since even a count's second son would have a significant advantage in the marriage market, with Daddy probably trying to get an heiress for his second son... This way, all the PKs would start around the same level: landless knights looking to earn their place in the world, rather than having lands and titles delivered on a silver platter, as soon as Daddy drops dead. (And I can always make the older brother die childless later, if I need the PK to inherit the family manor after all.)
I really like the page table, though. That is a neat idea that I might steal for our KAP campaign. I would have changed the rolling system for the Lord's son, definitely (1d6: 1-3 Royal, 4-6 Lord's Court / Great Monastery, depending on Father's class), save for the fact that I would have made the son illegitimate, as seen above. Hence potentially putting him under a lesser knight's care might be OK.
I am fully in favor of the following:
"As soon as a character qualifies for knighthood, he should be knighted and the squire aging procedure stop. Intentionally putting off your knighthood to gain better statistics is both unrealistic and wrong."
The Outfits... since I'd be GMing a more historical campaign, destriers and higher level armors would be out. I would flatten the differences between the Outfits, so that Outfit 2 (bachelor & mercenary knights' sons) would have a poor charger (5d6), instead of a rouncy, and probably scale mail, while Outfit 3 (vassal & banneret knights' sons) would simply upgrade the horse to a charger. Outfit 4 (Lord's son) would get the extra horses but keep the scale mail. This way, the only significant difference is the lance damage, which is not such a huge deal after the first charge. I'd make chain mail available as an upgrade, once they have some loot.
Oh, finally, I circle back to the Family Knights. I dislike them with a passion in KAP, and see no reason to change my opinion in Paladin. I find that they devalue the support of the other PKs and NPKs I might introduce, if every PK can summon 5 or so knights as his private army in need. The only exceptions I'd make is for living fathers, older brother of a vassal knight's son, and potentially the husband of the eldest sister (if father was a landed knight). Otherwise, if the player wants to have family knights, he can work for it in game, arranging brothers and cousins to be squired and paying for their knighting and arranging positions for them in various courts. Let him earn the family knights.
Full disclosure:
I dislike the extremes of 2d6 distribution and I would be much happier with 1d6, if I were to roll at all. For example, rather than the 2d6+3 in Attributes & Traits, I'd prefer 1d6+7. 1d6 gives slightly smaller standard deviation, but most importantly, it limits the extremes: your maximum difference from the mean is +-2.5, whereas with 2d6, it is +-5. While repeated extreme outliers are rare, it only takes one roll of 5 to make the character almost fatally crippled, whereas 8 is more playable.
I admit I also dislike the fact that the starting skills are rolled. While I can see an argument for it (people, both teachers and students, can have different interest), for me it pales in comparison to the simplicity of having set starting values of KAP. (Which could be simplified even further: just have everything start at 3.)
While I liked the idea of Father's class in KAP's 4th edition & now its adjusted form in Paladin, I do worry a bit that it could be potentially very unbalancing to the game, if someone rolls a count's son, especially as the character is automatically the eldest son. Granted, it is a low chance, 1/80, and one can alleviate it by making him a son of a bishop and hopefully forestall any inheritance that way. Or just make him illegitimate, but maybe acknowledged (or at least the father did pull some strings for him). Again, taking him out of the inheritance,but still maintain those family connections and upbringing. The skill boni, while extensive, are not insanely so. A few years' headstart. I do like the fact that Paladin keeps Mercenary Knight as the lowest background, rather than drop all the way to non-knightly classes. Like said, I don't like to have huge differences between starting PKs. It might also impel me to change the son number for the vassal knight to a younger son, so that they would be out of the direct line of inheritance. With a Lord, I would rather go for a bastard, since even a count's second son would have a significant advantage in the marriage market, with Daddy probably trying to get an heiress for his second son... This way, all the PKs would start around the same level: landless knights looking to earn their place in the world, rather than having lands and titles delivered on a silver platter, as soon as Daddy drops dead. (And I can always make the older brother die childless later, if I need the PK to inherit the family manor after all.)
I really like the page table, though. That is a neat idea that I might steal for our KAP campaign. I would have changed the rolling system for the Lord's son, definitely (1d6: 1-3 Royal, 4-6 Lord's Court / Great Monastery, depending on Father's class), save for the fact that I would have made the son illegitimate, as seen above. Hence potentially putting him under a lesser knight's care might be OK.
I am fully in favor of the following:
"As soon as a character qualifies for knighthood, he should be knighted and the squire aging procedure stop. Intentionally putting off your knighthood to gain better statistics is both unrealistic and wrong."
The Outfits... since I'd be GMing a more historical campaign, destriers and higher level armors would be out. I would flatten the differences between the Outfits, so that Outfit 2 (bachelor & mercenary knights' sons) would have a poor charger (5d6), instead of a rouncy, and probably scale mail, while Outfit 3 (vassal & banneret knights' sons) would simply upgrade the horse to a charger. Outfit 4 (Lord's son) would get the extra horses but keep the scale mail. This way, the only significant difference is the lance damage, which is not such a huge deal after the first charge. I'd make chain mail available as an upgrade, once they have some loot.
Oh, finally, I circle back to the Family Knights. I dislike them with a passion in KAP, and see no reason to change my opinion in Paladin. I find that they devalue the support of the other PKs and NPKs I might introduce, if every PK can summon 5 or so knights as his private army in need. The only exceptions I'd make is for living fathers, older brother of a vassal knight's son, and potentially the husband of the eldest sister (if father was a landed knight). Otherwise, if the player wants to have family knights, he can work for it in game, arranging brothers and cousins to be squired and paying for their knighting and arranging positions for them in various courts. Let him earn the family knights.