Tourneys and jousting

[Exeter]

Originally Posted by Icelander

What concerns me is that from what I can gather in the riding rules, a +3 bonus against being unhorsed is a feature of war saddles. This means that it's really hard to unhorse even a knight of minimal skill (who presumably still has to meet a minimum of skill 12) and almost impossible to unhorse an expert without inflicting terrible damage (in order to knock a ST 14 man two yards back, it's necessary to do 24 points of damage). And tournament lances aren't supposed to do that much damage and break before it happens.

Is it the case then that saddles used for jousting rather than war are built differently, the latter giving the bonus and the former not? That would make the task of unhorsing a moderately skilled knight in a tournament setting much easier. But, you're right, using the knockback rules combined with the fact that tournament lances can only deal 15 points of damage before breaking means that a ST 10 knight with a half-decent Riding skill isn't going to get unhorsed too often.