Ran my first session, went well. They're set up and really got off on hating my NPC who was snubbed for knighthood and ran off.

One question: Am I doing something wrong or is it REALLY hard to hurt an armored character? Fights between armored guys seemed to go on forever as they take turns knocking each other down until someone rolls a crit.

FREX the bear and bandits basically couldn't hurt the PCs. Like at all.

What gives?

I've also found that it's hard to hurt armoured knights, though that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Remember, healing is comparatively slow in this game and Major Wounds can literally decrease a character's effective adventuring lifespan.

Some things to note:

- Since you are typically rolling a large number of D6 for damage, that means that you've got a wide bell curve going on. Most damage rolls will be square in the middle of the bell curve and just buffet and bruise the PCs, but occasionally you will get a fluke that does nasty damage.

- Remember that you don't always apply the protection for your shield. If a character rolled a success on their combat roll but was beaten by a superior success (or a critical), then they catch the opponent's blow on their shield and get to use its protection, but if they failed their combat roll they don't get to use their shield. This makes a significant difference (it means folk who do 3D6 damage are no longer utterly wasting their time, for instance).

- Remember the knockdown rules, and that knockdown is based on the damage rolled before you adjust for armour.

- Don't forget to do double damage on criticals - or that when skills go above 20 that means the window for a critical success is expanded.

- Where things get really hairy is when two guys with their Passions up and applied to whichever combat skill they are using (almost certainly Sword if they are wise) go at it. Even with starting PCs, this likely means you have a person with Sword 25 facing off against a dude with Sword 25, which means they'll be doing criticals on 15+. Remembering that a crit is a crit is a crit, such fights often involve a number of rounds where the two foes are evenly matched (because they either both roll successes but don't actually hurt their opponents very much, or they both roll criticals and cancel out each other efforts), then one opponent gets in a critical on the other and suddenly the loser is looking at taking a Major Wound, if not instant death. (Note that here the Knockdown rules can come into play - knock down your opponent and they get +5 on their next attack and you get -5 on your combat skill on the next round, so your opponent is rolling on Sword 30 and you're on Sword 20 - meaning that they are quite likely to get a critical and you probably won't.)

On the whole I think the combat system works nicely for a world where knights are hard to wound, but any wound is potentially alarming, and where fights between impassioned knights are terrifying spectacles.

Oh, one more thing: remember the rules about splitting your skill between opponents if multiple people are attacking you, it's important. One-on-one, an armoured knight will more or less always defeat a mere peasant unless there's a fluke. An armoured knight against a mob of angry peasants, though, has a much tougher problem on his hands.

Ahhhhhhh...

I missed the shield bit. That'll make a difference.

Also does the DEX penalty from armor apply to the knockdown checks?

It doesn't seem like it should but the book isn't totally clear (I'm working from 5th edition).

I can see arguments for it going both ways, to be honest. My gut feeling is to say "no" because you don't apply armour type as a penalty to Horsemanship when you're handling knockdown against a mounted character.

I agree with everything Warthur has pointed out, and would emphasise the divided attention a knight has fighting different opponents, and the difference passions make.

//Panjumanju