For starters, the player knights left their horses behind during this encounter, and the nukalevee is akin to a man on a horse, so there's already a -5/+5 disadvantage for the players. Tough, especially as they are new knights and thus no expert fighters.

Secondly - the nukalevee doesn't even have to divide his weapon skill. Every knight is facing an opponent with a sword skill of 21 (16+5), while reducing their own score with the -5 malus.

How on earth are they supposed to dispatch this monster? Unless I'm missing something.

IIRC the nukalavee isn't that strong (in terms of the damage roll).

I can't remember if nookie is supposed to get the mounted bonus, but even if it is, that means you likely have 3 or more knights reduced to 10-15 skill, facing a beast with 21 skill v each of them. Over several rounds, the players *will* land hits (though they individually might only have about 1/6 chance of winning the exchange).

I've seen players win fights in pendragon at worse odds. But even if they don't win, that's not a problem. There are quite a few monsters in Pendragon that really aren't meant to be defeated the first time the players encounter them. Players coming from other games often find it hard to get to grips with that. It's probably just as hard for GMs who are used to placing monsters as a challenge with an expectation that the players *will* win. In pendragon, players can suffer a complete defeat without suffering a total party kill (several might be knocked out, to be nursed back to health when their squires have brought the nearest healer, for example).

Suffering a total defeat is a good thing, actually - every group should have that experience early on in a pendragon game. The campaign will be better for it!

Though the drawback of the Nuckalevee winning in this scenario is that it then kills Merlin, who never receives Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake, thereby completely altering the course of history.

lol, technicalities.

In that case, it will turn out that the players weren't there to defeat the creature - merely to keep it busy long enough for merlin to do what he intended. And in that, they succeeded, which Merlin can tell their children or replacements later on - and if he tells them this while hinting that he knew they were going to die, all the better for establishing Merlin as not that nice helpful wizard they might be expecting him to be.

The player knights are in armor (presumably) and the Nukalevee has only a 5 armor. It was no contest for my group.

Yeah its armour isn't that good, but if we do use the -5/+5 modifier because it is mounted, then my knights, which are new knights with 15-16 sword skills, fight with 10-11 against an opponent who succeeds automatically and has a 1 chance out of 10 to do critical damage. My knights got wiped out.

Technically, its not mounted. It may have a height advantage, but knights can strike it anywhere they want. Once you allow your knights to realise its all one creature they are not bound by the -5 if you enforced it.

Yeah its armour isn't that good, but if we do use the -5/+5 modifier because it is mounted, then my knights, which are new knights with 15-16 sword skills, fight with 10-11 against an opponent who succeeds automatically and has a 1 chance out of 10 to do critical damage. My knights got wiped out.


TPK?
Well, I've done it often
Here is what you do.
Generate their brothers, all of whom have a Hate Nukalevee Passion.
Go hunting, prepared.
Try again.

RE: Level of dangers in KAP

In one campaign I ran the player knights went back five times over three generations and NEVER resolved the issue there!

And tell your players to NEVER go into the Castle of the Black Hermit!

THat is one of the things about Pendragon. Many of the adventures are really tough, as opposend to "RPG tough".

In many games the players face faily weak foes in "balanced" (heavily biased in favor of the PCs) encounters. THe adventures often claim that the task at hand is difficult, and that the PCs are great heroes for accomplishing it, even though the adventure was really a cakewalk.

In Pendragon, many tasks are really tough, and the PCs often fail. But that is also why Penfrasgon givresd out much greater rewards for accomplishing such feats.


My group went through the Nuckalevee and the three-eyed giant like they were cuttinhg down peasants. But the same guys nearly got trashed by the "Bear of Imber". Dice and the laws of probability can be strange. M<ost of the time my PCs fail to notice the really tough threats becuase they get lucky and taken them down. Then they loose to some lesser threat and think it is very tough when they take more than 4d6 in damage.