So, when does a character come out of melancholy?

The last sentence on p.78 states "Melancholy usually lasts for a day."

The last paragraph on p.79 seems to contradict this: "The knight naturally awakens from his Melancholy on his own, but it requires a number of weeks equal to the passion that provoked the dismal mental state."

Is the first instance assuming that someone will be able to get the affected party to "Snap Out Of It", or have I missed something?

SDLeary

Good point. The phrase on p.79 was added by an editor, for reasons unknown to me.

Passion score in weeks is the standard Melancholy duration in KAP 5.1 and 5.2. Whereas KAP 4 had a duration of a day.

Ruben, did you base Paladin mainly on KAP 4? This could explain the dichotomy.

Got it!

A day when I'm feeling generous!

Weeks equal to the passion score when I'm feeling eeeeeeevil! Or when I really want to run a Cthulhu game. ;-)

SDLeary

Passion score in weeks is the standard Melancholy duration in KAP 5.1 and 5.2. Whereas KAP 4 had a duration of a day.

Ruben, did you base Paladin mainly on KAP 4? This could explain the dichotomy.

Probably yes. The Pendragon files Greg sent me date back from 2005...

Probably yes. The Pendragon files Greg sent me date back from 2005...

KAP 5.0 and GPC were published in November 2005. Alas, I have the 5.0 only as a dead-tree version and it is currently a couple of thousand kilometers away from me, so I can't check if the melancholy was already Passion weeks in that one. But yeah, that would seem to be the reason.

As for Melancholy rules themselves, I have always been a bit uneasy about them, since why would a FAILURE in a passion, i.e. the failure to summon the passion, send you into such extended melancholy? Instead, I would be much happier imposing that if you summoned the passion and then failed in your goal. I might also change it to Passion Days on a normal failure and Passion Weeks on an important one (death of a loved one, or some such). The Disheartened penalty and -1 Passion are already enough, IMHO, to discourage rolling Passions on a whim.

Mind you, I pretty much feel the same way about a Passion Fumble. I'd much rather keep the Madness as something that happens when you fail in whatever you got Critically Impassioned to do. Or if the object of your Passion chastises you, like Guenever accusing Lancelot of betraying her love, etc, and then you roll a Passion and crit. Oof, mortal wound right in the Feels.

I should also mention that we have lowered the Passion bonus to just +5 (since +10 was pretty much an auto-win, even against Round Table Knights other than Lancelot), and made away with the Shock, which was very much encouraging a wrong type of behavior: using Passions to get sure wins, and if it was more risky, not using the Passion for the fear of failing and getting Shock.

So, is the official version "Melancholy usually lasts for a day"? In this case, I'll post the correction to the Paladin errata sub-forum.

KAP 5.0 and GPC were published in November 2005. Alas, I have the 5.0 only as a dead-tree version and it is currently a couple of thousand kilometers away from me, so I can't check if the melancholy was already Passion weeks in that one. But yeah, that would seem to be the reason.

As for Melancholy rules themselves, I have always been a bit uneasy about them, since why would a FAILURE in a passion, i.e. the failure to summon the passion, send you into such extended melancholy? Instead, I would be much happier imposing that if you summoned the passion and then failed in your goal. I might also change it to Passion Days on a normal failure and Passion Weeks on an important one (death of a loved one, or some such). The Disheartened penalty and -1 Passion are already enough, IMHO, to discourage rolling Passions on a whim.

I can see imposing Melancholy on a fumble only. I'd prefer to keep it the same though, and imposing Hours or Days for a normal failure, and Days or Weeks for a fumble.


I should also mention that we have lowered the Passion bonus to just +5 (since +10 was pretty much an auto-win, even against Round Table Knights other than Lancelot), and made away with the Shock, which was very much encouraging a wrong type of behavior: using Passions to get sure wins, and if it was more risky, not using the Passion for the fear of failing and getting Shock.

A regular success in Paladin lists Inspiration giving +5, and +10 on a Critical.

On a side note, p.78 also says:


Use the Passion Results Table for all passions except prayers using Love [Charlemagne] or Love [God], which are rolled on the Prayer Results Table (see Magic for Player Characters in Chapter 9).

I can't find this table anywhere. It also doesn't seem to be listed in the Contents table listing. Table 4.2 in Pendragon 5.2 appears to be the right table though, yes?

SDLeary

I can't find this table anywhere. It also doesn't seem to be listed in the Contents table listing. Table 4.2 in Pendragon 5.2 appears to be the right table though, yes?

The table somehow got excised from the Kickstarter draft, but has been restored for the final version (which will be dropping very soon!). In the meantime, it is functionally the same as the Prayer Results table, albeit with inspiration bonuses of +5/+10 instead of +10/+20.