"Halt! Who goes there?"
"It is I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle of Camelot. King of the Britons, defeater of the Saxons: Sovereign of all England!"
"It is I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle of Camelot. King of the Britons, defeater of the Saxons: Sovereign of all England!"
A knight begins play with three unique characteristics, qualities that distinguish him from the rabble. A short descriptor for each should suffice. When he applies one of these noble qualities to his actions, he can either temporarily increase his skill for the roll in question by 2 (skills to be described later, be patient) or temporarily reduce such a skill by 1 and gain a Chivalry point. A Chivalry point represents willpower, nobility, and resolve in the face of a cruel and unforgiving existence. Since none of these qualities are present in the reader, we request you roleplay possessing them.
Your knight has for armor, goods, clothing, tools, and weapons whatever you remembered to have him bring with him, which we will assume is nothing because the default dungeon master or player is lazy and expects the manual to explain the possessions of a particular knight as if that happened to be the writer's job.
What follows are the eleven necessary skills for any knight. At no time will new skills need to be added, this is an all-encompassing list and anyone who informs you otherwise, or that these skills 'were taken from other games' is a liar and a knave.
- Athletics- For when you have to cross a gap whose other side is way too far away for any sane knight to try to jump.
- Alchemy- For when you really shouldn't pour those beakers into the same bowl together but you do anyways.
- Animal Rapport- For when your horse is complaining about being driven through four feet of snow, the whiny sod.
- Courtesy- For when you're asking the local merchant why you apparently owe him taxes instead of the other way around.
- Intrigue- This skill doesn't exist. No knight would ever try to deceive another knight or a lady. And he's definitely not having any affairs for which he would need this.
- History- For when you need to look up people or things that were dead hundreds of years ago but yet still remain painfully important to your tasks.
- Investigation- For when you lose your horse because you didn't train Animal Rapport.
- Performance- For when you need to distract from the fact that you're completely blitzed at a court meeting.
- Archery- For when you need to hurt something from way over there.
- Axe- For when you need to cut something, hopefully firewood and not your irritating peasantry.
- Lance- For when you need to stab something, presumably from horseback.
- Sword- For when you need to both stab and cut something but can't really make up your mind.
When creating a character, the skill for each of these begins at 8, since you are generally good at your job despite all evidence to the contrary. You are able to increase three by +1, two by +2, and one by +3. Make sure they're all different, or your DM will soon make sure your knight with 16 Athletics will never be able to find anything to which he can apply his skills.
When you attempt to test a skill without an enemy at hand but with some chance of failure, you must roll 2d6 and add any local modifiers. If the result is beneath your skill, you succeed, having accomplished something hopefully of merit. If it is exactly equal, you gain the benefit of your success, but with a catch that often makes you wish you had failed instead. Otherwise, you fail to accomplish even this comically easy task, you bumbling fool. At his discretion, the Dungeon Master may add some of the following modifiers to your roll result, to the sound of much grumbling.
For opposed rolls, all participating roll against their appropriate skills as previously mentioned, and the one who has the highest positive difference between his skill and the result achieves his ends, with the DM allocating some consolation to the loser. Alternatively, all present may choose to mock the loser for his inability to successfully manipulate random chance. If there is a tie between winners, a reroll is held between the winners to decide who is the winningest winner, either until one is decided or the heat death of the universe, whichever happens first. If all involved fail, the DM describes your hopeless fumbling from least to most pathetic.
When the matter is equal to sheer luck, 2d6 are rolled with appropriate modifiers and if the result is below 7 the matter settles in your favor. The reason why this is less likely to resolve happily than an ordinary skill check is because while you may be competent on paper, luck never seems to settle with you. Otherwise you would be playing an actually effective system.
Furthermore, when seeing the result of a roll either of an opponent or your own, you may spend Chivalry points to alter the results on a one-to-one basis. As such, two knights in opposition may see their results, one may spend three points to change his opponent's result by +3, and the other may spend two points to reduce his result by -2 back to a total modifier of +1 before calmly replying to his antagonist with a universal hand gesture.
For the purposes of combat, a simple system has been implemented. Every knight begins with twelve Stamina, a scaling value which you do not wish to reach equal or to below zero for the purposes of life preservation. A knight can choose to sacrifice one and only one of his initial skill increases to gain +2 Stamina and an additional +2 for every +1 from the skill beyond. Thus, by stupidly sacrificing the +3 skill increase, the knight can have 18 maximum Stamina instead of 12, allowing him to think about his mistake in good health.
When fighting, the initiator's group goes first, followed by his enemy's group, and then any neutral party or environmental effect if one exists. When all these three have been resolved, the turn has ended and another turn begins. When acting, each character uses the weapon skill most appropriate for the task at hand, with a skill penalty for inappropriate weapons. The winner of a contest reduces his enemy's Stamina by 2, whether he was initiating or not. After every additional contest a combatant makes during a single turn, they act at -1 cumulatively until the turn ends. This technically applies to skills other than weapons, but why would you be doing paperwork while swords sing?
Lacking weapons or reduced to a bow in close quarters, a knight can always attempt to roll under (Athletics-3), representing the ten seconds he attempts to use good old fisticuffs before being run through with a pike. Rather than being superficial in nature, each weapon performs differently against each other. Axes take a -1 skill penalty against swords, swords a -1 penalty against lances, and lances a -1 penalty against axes.
Daggers and things like them such as saps don't exist, as they are dishonorable weapons unbecoming of a knight and even if they did exist they would always come at the cost of a Chivalry point to use (with no other benefit of the Chivalry point). They definitely cannot be used at the highest weapon skill available to the knight with a -1 skill penalty against every other weapon, and if a knight should happen to hypothetically run out of Chivalry points while using a dagger he should NOT be able to use it at an additional -1 skill.
All three melee weapons are ineffectual against a bow at long range unless hurled at (Archery-3). When the weapon is hurled, it is obviously not easily retrieved. Bows are similarly useless in close quarters, as would be expected. Arrows can be used instead, but they are treated as daggers and thus don't exist.
When a Knight runs out of Stamina, he may spend a Chivalry point to immediately increase his temporary Stamina by 2. Lacking this, he is either unconscious or dead, depending on the circumstances. If he is merely unconscious, he may rest to regain his consciousness and half of his Stamina within eight hours of receiving appropriate care, or a quarter of his Stamina if he is not attended to but also not in peril. Values are rounded down. A knight not unconscious but wounded may take a short breather at least an hour long during which he is under no strain and in no peril to regain a quarter of his Stamina or eat and rest as mentioned before to regain half. Knights are still human and require feeding and drink at regular intervals, usually at the expense of an unfortunate lord or other knight.
Another use of a Chivalry point is to attempt to perform the extraordinary, or the extraordinarily stupid. If a knight attempts something that is plainly a long shot, the DM may choose to humor the moron at the cost of a Chivalry point, then set whatever penalty he likes for the skill check or dumb luck chance. If the knight somehow learns how to use magic during the course of play, the DM may choose to charge the knight chivalry points equivalent to the kind of feat he is attempting. He may even make the knight roll anyways just for kicks or to see how badly the wannabe mage botches it.
Q&A
Q. Is the Dungeon Master allowed to take liberties with the rules?
A. No. These are ironclad documents sworn to the highest powers in the land. Failing to act in accordance with them will lead to your introduction to a white van filled with men in black suits who are very curious about your identity, occupation, and next of kin.
Q. Why are the DM, the knights, and all the players addressed in this text male?
A. Considering the subject it seemed like a compliment to the fairer sex.
Q. Navis volitans mihi anguillis plena est.
A. .dneirf ,sdnah ruoy no emit hcum oot raf evah uoY
