04-29-2021, 01:02 PM | #31 | |||||
Join Date: May 2018
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Re: Are knightly characters ineffective?
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04-29-2021, 01:37 PM | #32 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Are knightly characters ineffective?
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The other characters should be doing stuff at the same time. Anyone skilled with a bow (or other form of ranged combat) can help the peasant brigade in downing charging orcs (and/or attacking the ones who turn to face the knight, given they can't defend against attacks from behind). The mage is buffing his allies and/or launching artillery or battlefield-control spells at the orc horde. The commoner mercenary combat-monster is at the gate, cutting down any orcs that make it that far - and thanks to the efforts of the others, this is a manageable trickle rather than an overwhelming flood.
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04-29-2021, 01:40 PM | #33 | ||||||
Join Date: May 2018
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Re: Are knightly characters ineffective?
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04-29-2021, 01:57 PM | #34 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Are knightly characters ineffective?
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04-29-2021, 02:07 PM | #35 |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: Are knightly characters ineffective?
. . . and then there's the vast majority of people who just play their role/do their job without meaningful social interaction if "meaningful social interaction" isn't their role/job. And for much of history, it wasn't part of what a knight did. A knight could be an itinerant thug with the social skills of such. The whole idea of knights who are leaders, even rulers, and courtly or at least inspirational, holds a grain of truth but doesn't represent most knights. It's the legacy of knights who rose to important posts and/or inspired stories.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
04-29-2021, 02:47 PM | #36 | |
Join Date: Apr 2020
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Re: Are knightly characters ineffective?
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The litmus test for this is to imagine your character being transported naked with no equipment to another world. The character is not able to return to the original, nobody knows them in the new world and they don't know anybody in the new world. This isn't what actually happens, of course, it's just the test for which traits are intrinsic. Any Advantages, disadvantages or any other traits that the would still have are intrinsic to the character. Anything else is ephemeral. So, players spend points only on things that are intrinsic to their characters and everything else is handled as background - whatever traits are needed to define your background you simply get. If I feel the need to balance the backgrounds I simply give them a separate "Bucket of Points" for anything ephemeral which is balanced separately. So your knight has wealth and status and your bard might be a peasant, but maybe they're famous. Each had better have the skills to back that up or they may lose the ephemeral traits they have. Just my 2c. - Shane |
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04-29-2021, 05:15 PM | #37 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: Are knightly characters ineffective?
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I think we can assume that both the unlanded knight and the commoner combat wombat get to spend all their starting asset value on their professional tools. In the Basic Set $5000 gets you a sword, shield, a couple of cheap weapons, a riding horse, and DR6 plate plus greathelm, gauntlets and sollerets. If plate isn't available, a full mail suit (with heavy mail on the body) only costs a little over $1000, enough that you need to be Wealthy to have one and weapons and armour, but very affordable for the Wealthy. Meanwhile the commoner with $1000 buys an inexpensive weapon (even a Cheap Shortsword costs $160), and his choices are quite constrained if he wants to option of attacking and parrying in the same turn, especially if he wants the defensive benefits of a shield. He can only afford normal mail, and certainly won't have a horse, so he'll be more tired if called upon to fight immediately after or whilst travelling. Low Tech offers more options for the commoner, however if you're using LT presumably you want a fairly realistic game, and the commoner's choice of weapons when they're lordless is likely to be sharply limited by local weapon control laws, and their best bet might end up being a quarterstaff (and hope to not run into archers). LT armour is very expensive and the knight probably only has mail, or light mail with a jack on their torso over the top. The commoner has some kind of leather, and thus has a bit less DR and if they didn't use their extra point buying ST they'll be regretting it - it's a lot heavier than mail. A landed knight is Status 3, and probably Very Wealthy. They'd only get to spend 20% of their wealth on weapons and armour, but they should have access to stuff that's not 'theirs', or more wealth. Oh, and also to armed retainers. Which is of course another thing - most landless knights weren't without lords, and their lords would provide equipment, so they'd have full harness of good armour, and war trained horses, etc.
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
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04-29-2021, 05:25 PM | #38 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: Are knightly characters ineffective?
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People, especially commoners, might not like the knight, but they'll be nice to him when they won't be so nice to the commoner.
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
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04-29-2021, 05:32 PM | #39 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: Are knightly characters ineffective?
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If you want all those points to matter, you have to make social stuff be more than "What influence skill are you using?" If you don't think they need to matter that much on your game, you might need to consider charging much less for them than the list prices.
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
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04-29-2021, 06:01 PM | #40 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Are knightly characters ineffective?
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There are a number of ways you can counteract the attraction of the mono-functional min-maxed character: -Use rules that directly discourage or prohibit extreme skill levels so you don't have all your combat wombats chasing 20+ skill levels. Point pools, skill caps, skill upkeep, there's a bunch of options. -Don't present challenges scaled for a monomaniac specialist. In combat, use opponents that can be matched (or outmatched) by a 'balanced' PC. If there's a super combat wombat around, add more of them rather than throwing in a weaponmaster that only the wombat can challenge. Outside combat try not to place over-the-top penalties in the way. People probably won't feel great need for Lockpicking-18 if locks are in line with Low Tech p120-122, where the best have a -2 penalty to pick and most have a bonus. -Make it known that certain kinds of challenges are going to be hard or impossible to entirely offload onto a specialist, so PCs are encouraged or required to have some competency in them even if their focus is elsewhere.
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Tags |
character design, knight |
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