Re: Game Discussion

[Daveth Coldbrook]

Stuff to make techniques other than Charm & Convince more attractive is probably good. I like what you've done with Seduction already - making it a small net positive long-term, rather than a noticeable net negative makes a *huge* difference to its attractiveness as an option. Generally, I'd be in favour of explicitly expanding certain options for existing techniques, rather than creating a new technique. In the example you cite, a deception-based Convince makes the most sense to me in the RAW, but maybe an Incite variant could be worked up? I'm also looking at Intimidate - it seems to be focused on physical intimidation, rather than allowing for social intimidation ('do you know who I am?' kind of deal), in which 'running away' doesn't really seem like a logical consequence.

How big of a disadvantage Proud is depends largely on the size of the PC's house. In the Coldbrook/Drakeson group, there were relatively few important rolls where we couldn't gather together +2 in Assisting and at least another +2-3 in Coordinating, which makes a big difference (as would a constant +2 Assist in intrigues). I imagine in, say, the Longshore camp, which was never massively populated, assisting wouldn't play so large a role. Since that's not something particularly controllable, you're probably right that there are balance issues there.

[Daveth Coldbrook]

Oh, wow.  I like the new benefit & flaws.

A few comments, though:
Honor-bound
'Note: Things like the seduction in the above example does not trigger the test.'
Perhaps make the divide more explicit, rather than relying on a single example.  Something along the lines of 'this will never provide you with bonuses to avoid situations pushed by others, it will merely guide your actions when they are yours to choose'.

Promiscuous: 'the default disposition towards you from members of the faith and are at -4.'  Missing word(s), or superfluous 'and'.
'-For men, the default disposition towards you from other men (unless they have daughters) is unaltered.' - how about older brothers?  Is there not the same expectation of 'protection' there?
'-For young women, the default disposition towards you from young men is +2'
Young men, or unwed men?  Or unwed young men?  Personally, unwed men makes the most sense to me, but I can see any option being valid.
'-For young women, [...] they also gain +2 on seduction tests against you and +1 influence. [...]
Note: This represents having a certain reputation, whether earned or not.'
If the reputation is unearned, how come men can gain intrigue bonuses against you?  Maybe instead do harm to dowries/marriage prospects, and penalty to default disposition of family (bringing shame on their name), or maybe a penalty to default disposition of ladies of positive Virtue?  I mean, I *can* see the argument (if you're suffering the punishment, why not do the crime?), it just seemed a little odd.
Finally, maybe I'm mistaken, but it seems to me like in the setting, this reputation would be a lot worse for a lady than for a man, especially an unwed man.  Just a suggestion, but maybe make it female only, and male lotharios* just have to deal with the consequences as-and-when?  (Or at least for men, it's explicitly the reputation that he's slept with *noble* women, rather than limiting himself to commoners?)

Something the new Proud made me think of: are the TNs too low for the disadvantages to be ... disadvantageous?  TN 9 particularly, and I know you pick the lowest of the two stats to roll, but still, with 3 in the Stat (only costing 10 points) and 1 in the specialty (costing 5), you only have an 11% (approx) chance of failing.  38% (approx) vs TN12, dropping to about 23% for just another bonus die.  Especially for things which aren't massively crippling, I could see a good argument for a blanket +3 to TNs.  To my mind, if they're important enough to be a disadvantage, they should be difficult to resist.

Actually, that reminds me: Lascivious could do with clarification to make explicit ... how far you're expected to push the matter, let's say?  (Trying to be circumspect, here).

Zealot: 'You suffer -1 on all tests not modified by the pious benefit.'  I like the *idea*, here, but that's -1 to *every single roll*, bar 1/day (assuming you have Pious, which isn't actually a requirement, I note).  That's pretty harsh.  I wonder if it would be better to have Pious as a requirement, and it gives you 1 additional use of the Pious bonus a day, or something like that.  Or maybe limit the scope of the penalty, so it only counts in intrigues, or doesn't count in combat, or something like that.

But like I said, I like the new options.  There always seemed to be a shortage of disadvantages, particularly if you didn't want to take the (frankly rather boring) Flaw disadvantage.

*Okay, yes, I know technically a 'lothario' is by definition male, but I wanted to make absolutely clear I was talking about men, and 'male lothario' flowed better than 'male with a reputation for promiscuity'.

[Theomore Tullison]

The hit to virtue is tougher than the hit to chivalry for promiscuous, so it should be harder on women I think, tweaking somewhat more though. The general idea being that if men thinks you are "available" so to speak, they'll be more confident, but since this (like a few of these others) are designed for a specific NPC and the seduction bonuses wouldn't make sense in her case, I'll switch that out.

I set TN 9 for proud since I at the time of writing felt it threw out a rather large net, but bonus dice is rather cheap now, so TN 12 isn't overly brutal either.

Lascivious, the way I see it, as written, it would strictly speaking only kick in if you try to turn down an opportunity, if you have to make a seduction test or do something in return to create that opportunity, you are not turning it down (but the test would be triggered if you did that and then got cold feet). Nor would it stop you from counter-intriguing a seduction attempt in order to get both the fun and something else out of it, too. Although if all you have to do is to carry a barrel ten feet or something, I'd argue that it probably would kick in. If you are asking about the non-consensual bit, then no. That drawback is suppose to make you weak to certain charms, it doesn't make you a monster.

Side note: It is very much setting appropriate to have the non-consensual thing and other nasty stuff happen, but it should be 100% the choice of the player to involve their character in such things. And that should override whatever drawbacks or intrigue results or whatever else might push them to otherwise.

Zealot is a variation of Coldwind's drawback with the same name, he actually had -1D, but a number of Pious uses equal to dedication. I'm presently out of better ideas, so we'll see.

[Daveth Coldbrook]

Is prejudiced really that much of a disadvantage? At least where the prejudice is commonly held? (e.g. Dornish and Bastards). Yes, you may lose potential friends and allies, but you're likely to gain others though common enemies.
'Your disposition towards members of this group must be unfriendly' 'At best unfriendly', I would assume? Or possibly 'Default to unfriendly (-5), with no positive modifiers allowed'?
Still, I rather feel like this is better handled with a 'Dornish' disadvantage, similar to the 'Bastard' disadvantage, rather than having a common prejudice being a disadvantage. Maybe expand the rather useless 'Worldly' benefit to include 'You may ignore the disposition penalty of any group(s) of your choice'? (Which would at least give it a purpose of 'scooping up useful but unpopular allies'.)

Red Blooded: AKA 'Why Imry isn't allowed Vicious weapons'. Still, this *could* be a very significant disadvantage for someone *other* than the person taking it. Eh, Westeros. *Shrug*.

Sickly: 'You suffer -1D on endurance tests to resist hazards and ailments as well as all tests to recover from injuries and wounds.11' Typo at end.

Also, currently the rules state that you may change your disposition by one step at the start of each exchange of an intrigue. Given how many Benefits/Disadvantages have an impact on disposition, are you intending to change this rule at all? (e.g. 'max 1 shift per intrigue, reverts at the end of the intrigue unless the intrigue didn't modify your disposition in any other way').

[Theomore Tullison]

Repeatedly failing that will test may see your chivalry drop, you being judged to break the rules of tournaments and kill rather than capture important people that you might have held for juicy ransoms. Or getting yourself killed if on the loosing end for refusing to quit.

Not sure if Imry would have that one though, proud and vainglorious are probably more his style.

That prejudice will test is designed to make you talk yourself into trouble in my book, so I think it passes muster.

Most of the time, only NPC's have default dispositions and PC's set them as they please, a character with the outlook of people are people would generally not have worse disposition against bastards and dornish and stuff, most NPC's does. In general, players gets to determine what their PC's feels about other characters, and that has been working out well enough so far, same about NPC's really, but since there's dozens of NPC's to keep track of, most NPC's follow the herd.

[Daveth Coldbrook]

Re: Red Blooded, oh, sure. I wasn't trying to imply it wasn't a disadvantage for the character with it, just pointing out that (should someone outfit them with a vicious weapon, in particular), it could be rather disadvantageous for their opponent as well, should they lose. Yes, that PC loses chivalry, but their opponent could well lose their life. Still, it was an observation, rather than a request for change.

Weak willed: does this mean if you take the -1D variant of frustration, you let through a fixed 1 influence?

Untrustworthy: 'In addition, each time someone disposition' Typo: 'Someone's'.
'Also, you do not gain any bonuses from chivalry or virtue to persuasion or deception tests of any kind.' Virtue doesn't give any bonuses to those anyway, does it? Or is that affecting event rolls?
'each time someone disposition towards you would improve, the effect is reduced by one.' Clarification: how would that interact with Seduction's mix of permanent and temporary disposition shifts?

Promiscuous: 'the default disposition towards you from members of the faith at -4'. Missing 'are'.

Also, purely an aesthetic thing: I'd like it if you'd be consistent with spacing - most benefits/drawbacks don't have a line break between the name and the description, but some do. Making it so they consistently don't have a line break there would be appreciated.

[Theomore Tullison]

Pah, if it wasn't for Theo, Dragonsdance would be a rather sordid affair.

Yes, that would be how weak willed works as written.

[Daveth Coldbrook]

Especially for things which aren't massively crippling, I could see a good argument for a blanket +3 to TNs.  To my mind, if they're important enough to be a disadvantage, they should be difficult to resist.

I thought I'd expand on this, as I have an idea I thought I'd throw your way.
1) Disadvantages should be disadvantageous.  If it's enough of a flaw to take a mechanical disadvantage, it's dominant enough that it should pop up semi-regularly, regardless of your stats.
2) Will (Dedication) is the sensible thing to resist these rolls with.  Most people will have 3-4 Will (3 is cheap, 5 is very expensive), but even this minor spread has a huge difference in hitting fixed TNs.
3) It doesn't make sense to me that a character with 6d6k4 should be able to largely ignore their disadvantages, but someone with 3d6 and the same disadvantage should have it rule so dominantly.

So, this is my idea: have the TNs to resist your resistable disadvantages be defined by the character's passive Will (Dedication).  Perhaps -3/4 from the TN if it's particularly common/harsh, and +3/4 for attacking weaknesses (e.g. Attractive vs Lascivious).  This means, no matter what stats the character has, their disadvantage is significant, but not totally overpowering.  Let's have a table to see how it works.

Chances of failure

Code:

       TN9    TN12   TN15   Proposed
3D     26%    62.5%  91%    62.5%
3D1B   10.5%  38%    77%    51%
3D2B   4%     22.5%  62%    47.5%
4D     5.5%   24%    55.5%  66.5%
4D1B   1.5%   10%    33%    55%
4D2B   0.5%   4%     18.5%  49%


So, with this proposed idea, the probabilities of failure are contained within the spread 47%-67%, irrespective of stats, rather than the 0.5%-91% it currently is (or 4%-62.5% if you want to just look at TN12).

Edit: Also, romantic: suggest dropping the C/V requirement to 3, rather than 4. Say you have a grizzled older knight (so, Master, Status 3 or 4), with no benefits that give extra Chivalry. He'll have Chivalry 3 maximum (assuming he can afford Reputation 2 or 1). Same thing with Master-level ladies - unless they're Status 5 Rep 2+, or take specific benefits (only 2 increase Virtue, I believe), they're Virtue 3. In both cases, I feel like they should still qualify as 'idealised enough'.

[Theomore Tullison]

All of that is tricky to calibrate, the proposed method would actually penalize for higher ability, which is undesirable, and a range of 25%-75% would be acceptable, but that's rather impossible maintaining the same TN across the board.

The simplest way to do that is to make the TN 13 and have it be Will without any specialty. Someone with Will 5 then has 10% chance of failing, but that's a steep investment.

A more elegant solution in terms of results would be that the TN is 9, +3 for each will rank above 2, plus a -1b "training penalty" to dedication tests, that would be kinda brutal to anyone with will 3 and no dedication, but assuming people get at least 1b, the range then is 33% to 62%, effectively 33% or 38% for those buying that extra dedication die. You could get dedication 3 with will 5 and push it down to 16%, but staying at 2 dedication nets you 29%.

[Daveth Coldbrook]

Yeah. The eternal battle between 'desired probabilities' and 'acceptably complex mechanics' continues...

More seriously, that's such a 'personal taste' thing that I'll leave it to you to ponder.

[Theomore Tullison]

At this point, I'll say I've done way too much work on this not to see it through, I'm still in GRRM-mode as far as suggesting launch date goes.

Started drafting some IC also, by the looks of it, the Tyrell fool's appearance will give reader's Mushroom a run for the motley.

Still a ton of NPC's to stat out, but I have a selection of template stat blocks now, so I just copy paste and tweak as I fancy for the most part.

Also need to figure out what the various NPC's will be up to, need a nice selection of plots, rumors and other stuff which other PC's might stumble across...or just witness as they unfold. I do have some ideas of course, a couple of attempted murders scheduled, interesting duels to see in the tourney. Though the way my mind works is that once I start to come up with that sort of thing as I flesh out characters.

A few events also need to be figured out, some should be relatively easy, then there's a few loads more complex, but those would come at the end at the chronicle anyhow. Out of ideas for playing around with the Hedge Maze, maybe it'll come to me, or maybe not.

[Theomore Tullison]

Yeah.  The eternal battle between 'desired probabilities' and 'acceptably complex mechanics' continues...

More seriously, that's such a 'personal taste' thing that I'll leave it to you to ponder.

I opted to settle for a line in the drawback thread giving me the option to set higher individual TN's should the issue come up.

[Baelon Drakeson]

I think it would be interesting to make those will tests be against passive persuasion... basically, can you resist talking yourself into doing something you know you shouldn't? The TN should probably be a bit lower though, so maybe subtract cunning ranks, or a flat -3 or -4.

I mean, you could 'game' the system by having low persuasion, but that has it's own dangers. It is perhaps a bit harsh on those with persuasion 5, but those are also characters getting a more benefit out of high Will (presumably they intend to be in intrigues regularly, so the extra composure and fatigue limit will be more beneficial).

Will 4, Dedication 2 vs Persuasion 5 with 4 Cunning (TN 16) has only about a 27% chance of failure, that's not too bad. If you only have Will 3, its a lot uglier.... but it would be kinda ugly in a serious intrigue anyway, so probably worth warning a player about.

---

Side note: Craven calls for a Will(Courage) test but also prohibits having Courage dice.... that seems a bit odd. Why not just have it be a generic Will test?

[Theomore Tullison]

Hmm, as far as Craven goes, that does seem odd, yeah. And Courage is something that doesn't come up all that often, so shouldn't be an issue.

It would kinda be appropriate to have combat applications for courage, food for thought, but I haven't planned anything potentially life-threatening for the PC's to stumble into (not for the PC's anyhow), and right now I probably should call myself satisfied with clearing the existing to-do list and then just polish.

[Baelon Drakeson]

I have a few simple ideas for courage in battle.

I could see there being simultaneous intimidate vs passive courage tests before combat. Exchanging taunts and threats before battle is common across cultures - rattling your opponent before a fight never hurts. Perhaps have a success inflict a -1 to all tests (starting with initiative) until a free action Courage test TN 9 (intentionally low) is made (kinda like Craven). Having a Per DoS scaling would be nice, but i think -1 per DoS might be a bit too harsh at the high end.

Second idea would be a combat maneuver similar to distract but using intimidate vs courage, though I suspect it would be used about as often as Distract.

Final idea, perhaps require a Courage test to keep fighting after taking an injury/wound, DC being based on how many you have (something like 2 per injury and 5 per wound). Failure means that you have to yield. This would be waived in cases where yielding is guaranteed to result in death, but not if an opponent might be persuaded NOT to kill you. In other words, if you are in a trial by combat defending against a capital crime, it would not apply; however, if a catspaw is sent to murder you it would because you could try to bribe them into keeping you alive.

[Theomore Tullison]

Well, that could work, although I think having allowing heroes in a battle to do Will(courage) test at the start of the battle to give some defensive bonuses (say +1 Health per DoS) to units they are attached to would be a better fit for that sort of thing.

With Persuasion often a higher priority than cunning (and will, for that matter), such a maneuver would likely have better chance of success than distract, and if you can succeed on distract most of the time, it's probably better than aim under most circumstances, so it doesn't sound too far fetched.

May still apply in trial by combat if you believe there's a good chance of being allowed to take the black though. However, I have a feeling that it wouldn't pass the "Would I force this on a PC"-test.

Though considering the overall chivalry theme I am going for, it would be highly appropriate to come up with situations that calls for bravery. Easily enough done in Downtime, but since I'm rather happy with events as they are, I'm not sure if I can add anything like that into the main chronicle....though I'm having a few ideas, but I've kinda told myself not to implement any new ideas at this point.

[Baelon Drakeson]

I think the biggest problem with the "intimidate-as-distract action" is that there isn't a clear and obvious effect for it. Distract removing Alertness from CD just makes sense; if it succeeds the target looks away, has sand in their eyes, or otherwise has attention shifted away from the attacker. Intimidation lowering defense seems artificial. If anything, an intimidated opponent would be MORE defensive, not less. I suppose lowering their ability to attack you could make sense; of course, then it starts to seem like a variant on Maneuver, albeit one that is probably more likely to succeed.

On a related note, in my opinion the single most significant thing you can do to improve the variety of combat actions is to change how passive values are calculated. All of the "attribute vs passive attribute" actions are VERY attribute dependent, with ties going heavily to the defender but then swinging massively to the attacker with even just one point higher attribute. Having passive values be Attribute*3 instead of Attribute*4 corrects that. Right now the odds of success for most of those options are just too low to compete with the guaranteed success of Aim. The notable exception of course is knockdown: the prevalence of Athletics based weapons meant that almost all combatants favor Athletics over Agility, meaning the odds of success are in the attacker's favor; the reverse is true of Cunning and Will for Distract, and the typically tied values of Fighting make Maneuver impractical and Disarm laughable. If passive values were calculated off of 3 instead of 4, these options become much more attractive, though not overpoweringly so (though Disarm is still impractical).

Statistics:

As the charts (in the spoiler) show, if passive values are calculated off of 3, whoever has the higher attribute gets the advantage (as it should be) with ties going to the offense (giving greater incentive to try things). With the standard Attribute*4, only those with a higher attribute are likely to even consider risking failure for greater reward. Even with the higher attribute, the odds are not great.

[Daveth Coldbrook]

A niche case that might do with some clarification:
I'm not sure what effect Flaw (Status) has on Chivalry and Starting Money, given that Flaw reduces 'Derived characteristics'.

Also, looking at Tourney Knight:
Given that you have to spend a Benefit, and 10-20 points on an otherwise-completely useless specialty for utility in one specific circumstance (as opposed to, say, Talented (Fighting) which gives almost half the benefit (luck dependent) for less cost in far broader circumstances), would it really be too much to ask to have it apply to active Animal Handling rolls to stay in the saddle as well? Alternatively (and preferably, to my mind) (or maybe even additionally, I'm not sure of the balance here), have the bonus it provides be half Status (round up), and just ignore Tournament Specialty entirely (maybe remove it from the game, and see if *anybody* notices).

Yes, it's powerful, but if you're going to spend a Benefit on one very specific circumstance, it should be.

[Baelon Drakeson]

Yes, it's powerful, but if you're going to spend a Benefit on one very specific circumstance, it should be.

In a general game like Dragons Dance I might agree... in one centered around southern knights, I expect jousting will probably be a very common occurrence...

[Theomore Tullison]

You get the bonus to passive ride, which arguably is more useful than stay in saddle, so it's basically +2 attack, +2 defense during the joust. It's really nice for people that wants to win jousts. A Tarly probably would pick Talented (Fighting), but others might go with tourney knight because of the glory and prestige that comes with it.

Utterly useless in combat though.

[Daveth Coldbrook]

In a general game like Dragons Dance I might agree... in one centered around southern knights, I expect jousting will probably be a very common occurrence...

My point was aimed at comparing it with Talented (Fighting) - by definition, all jousts are fighting, but not all fighting is jousts.  Further, unless something goes seriously wrong, jousting is non-lethal - important, yes, but not life-and death.

You get the bonus to passive ride, which arguably is more useful than stay in saddle

Oh, I agree to that.  I was suggesting maybe 'as well', definitely not 'instead'.

It's really nice for people that wants to win jousts.

A statement that initially seems almost tautological in its obviousness, yet when I thought about it, made me blink.  The only purpose I came up for it was for high status-people (e.g. Lords and GBs) who are supposed to be good at jousts, but not totally incompetent as a ruler (e.g. Lord Willem Starling) (since that 5th point in Status is just so expensive), as they simply have too many demands on their XP (Which is why I was suggesting removing the specialty requirement - that makes it a better fit for that niche).

A Tarly probably would pick Talented (Fighting), but others might go with tourney knight because of the glory and prestige that comes with it.

The +1 Chivalry certainly is nice, though I can't really tell how powerful it is until some of the events that use it come out, so I admit that's something of a 'wildcard' to me.

Edit: Since I tend to muddle my points, I'll clarify here: the 'include rolls to remain in the saddle' idea was a 'I'm not sure, let's raise it for debate' point; the 'make it not depend on tournament specialty' was a 'I feel this is a significant improvement' idea.

However, I could propose a compromise: make it depend on Breeding instead of Tournaments.  My main objection to the dependency is Tournaments is basically worthless, aside from in combination with this one benefit.  Breeding is arguably not as useful as Reputation (initiative being so useful in social intrigues, and there no longer being any 'auto-initiative' benefits (which I see as a good thing, btw)), but it's not useless, and arguably makes more sense for a measure of how good a jouster one can be than one's ability to *organise* a frikkin tournament. (In fact, I would argue that the 'purpose' the Tournament specialty serves would be better put under 'Reputation', and the Tournament specialty removed entirely.)

[Theomore Tullison]

Picking up the tournament specialties to go with the benefit is rather cheap with the changes made to costs, so I wouldn't really consider that much of an expense.

In the Highgarden Tourney, Fighting 5 Lances 2, Animal Handling 4 Ride 2 is the baseline needed for a good chance of getting into the final 8 in my head, Fighting 4, AH 4 with same specialties and some luck/benefits/DP should be good enough to win a local tournament, and several NPC's noted as talented jousters and such are on that level. It is theoretically possible to build a PC that would rank as the best jouster in Westeros straight out of character creation, though your friendly neighborhood narrator would be cautious about allowing it. It will be much more difficult to make a character who would rank as the best warrior of Westeros, probably impossible.

Anyway, I digress.

Effect of Tourney Knight at 2 specialties is almost enough to cover the differences between Fighting 4 and 5, and seriously tilting the odds between equally capable jousters, so I think it's powerful enough for what it does.

Though specifically for the joust, we're going to have the issue of what happens when the gap between expected fighting tests and passive ride is on the low end, and when there's more people around with AH raised than Fighting above the standard 3-4 array for a knight. Reduction of passive test results in general as Baelon suggests is a possible solution, but they did that in Southron Ambitons, and I do not recall that as being much of a success really (it wasn't a horrible idea, though, like some of the other ones), they also did away with the AH to bonus dice on horseback, which meant that without the lower passive results, the jousts would have gone horribly. The simplest solution may to be to just ignore the -1D when simultaneously charging each other.

The across the board reduction of passive results is something I'm rather reluctant to do since it will affect so many aspects of play, it comes down to something I'd see tested in actual play before I'd put it in with everything else I've come up with. SA doesn't count since they tossed in so many house rules that it's hard to say what worked because they were good ideas and what worked because of some other house rule that compensated for their flaws.

[Baelon Drakeson]

In a general game like Dragons Dance I might agree... in one centered around southern knights, I expect jousting will probably be a very common occurrence...

My point was aimed at comparing it with Talented (Fighting) - by definition, all jousts are fighting, but not all fighting is jousts.  Further, unless something goes seriously wrong, jousting is non-lethal - important, yes, but not life-and death.

A good point, though I would suspect that many knights - particularly the younger & higher-status ones - very little of the fighting they have done or conceive of ever doing is of actually of the life-and-death variety. Both benefits are good (at least in GB, by the book Talented is a bit weak); I see the choice between them being mostly based on character than on mechanics - even if you do have to sink a few points in Tournaments.

My main objection to the dependency is Tournaments is basically worthless, aside from in combination with this one benefit.

Hm. I don't think that is a huge problem, simply because scaling benefits like this (like Powerful weapons and Shield Mastery) are best used with lesser-used specialties - who takes Strength or Shields without those? Well, the book NPCs all have 1b in shields if they have a large shield, because of the training penalty, but that hardly counts.

Really, I'd like to see Tournaments be occasionally useful in other ways instead of eliminating it - recognizing knights (tournament competitors only), better odds at placing bets, maybe even benefits when hosting/organizing/etc.; nothing too good or too frequent, but on par with occasionally needing to move heavy objects (i.e. the non-Powerful use of Strength).

---

In the Highgarden Tourney, Fighting 5 Lances 2, Animal Handling 4 Ride 2 is the baseline needed for a good chance of getting into the final 8 in my head, Fighting 4, AH 4 with same specialties and some luck/benefits/DP should be good enough to win a local tournament, and several NPC's noted as talented jousters and such are on that level.
...
Though specifically for the joust, we're going to have the issue of what happens when the gap between expected fighting tests and passive ride is on the low end, and when there's more people around with AH raised than Fighting above the standard 3-4 array for a knight.

One of my (several) character ideas is a low-born knight - the son of a horse breeder/trainer - who is a natural rider but still somewhat lacking in skill-at-arms. In other words, squarely the issue you are describing: Fighting 4 (maybe even with Inept) and AH 5.  Not someone that would be expected to win a major tourney, perhaps, but would be seen as an up-and-coming contender... at least enough to make the more haughty uncomfortable given his low-born origin. Needless to say, any changes in the jousting system could have major implications for such a character.

Reduction of passive test results in general as Baelon suggests is a possible solution, but they did that in Southron Ambitons, and I do not recall that as being much of a success really (it wasn't a horrible idea, though, like some of the other ones), they also did away with the AH to bonus dice on horseback, which meant that without the lower passive results, the jousts would have gone horribly. The simplest solution may to be to just ignore the -1D when simultaneously charging each other.

The across the board reduction of passive results is something I'm rather reluctant to do since it will affect so many aspects of play, it comes down to something I'd see tested in actual play before I'd put it in with everything else I've come up with. SA doesn't count since they tossed in so many house rules that it's hard to say what worked because they were good ideas and what worked because of some other house rule that compensated for their flaws.

Two responses:
RE Jousting:
How sure are you that jousting attacks need to be boosted? By the book most AH 3 characters get knocked out in one hit as it is, and you have already increased the damage on lances. BTW it's not clear if you add your mount's Strength to your base damage or total damage - if the former it's a right nasty increase, if the latter it's somewhat underwhelming, though enough to make 2 DoS hits hard to fully recover from, even in plate. if you are concerned about the kind of ever-lasting jousts that we saw at the Drakeson tourney, my suggestion would be to give all lances Piercing 2 and get rid of the Catch Your Breath between passes. I would also make Piercing be per-DoS, personally, but that might be a step too far. The point being that even 1 DoS hits would do some damage, and you can no longer recover from it between passes. Perhaps also make taking an injury be an automatic dismount. Then assuming Endurance 4 a joust can go for at most 6 passes.

RE changing passive values:
I understand your reticence (wise!), but how much do passive values actually come into play? It is my impression that outside of combat/jousting and to a lesser extent intrigue it doesn't come up much at all - occasionally passive awareness, and passive endurance against poisons. I know it in theory can occur in a lot of circumstances, but given the way that events work in these forum games it doesn't seem that common.

In regard to the feasibility of combat actions, specifying that they use specialty dice (on offense but not defense) would go a long way towards it as well, at least when the attributes are even. 6d6k4 vs TN 16 (passive for 4) has ~73% chance of success, while a flat 4d6 only has ~34% against the same TN. It wouldn't help Distract much (unless you've got Cunning 4 you are almost always better off with Aim), but for the others it would help. Well, Disarm is still a joke. Honestly, needing 2 DoS is just too much, even if you did lower the passive values.

[Daveth Coldbrook]

Really, I'd like to see Tournaments be occasionally useful in other ways instead of eliminating it - recognizing knights (tournament competitors only), better odds at placing bets, maybe even benefits when hosting/organizing/etc.; nothing too good or too frequent, but on par with occasionally needing to move heavy objects (i.e. the non-Powerful use of Strength).

I do actually like this, and it would reduce my aggravation somewhat - it's the *complete* uselessness of the Tournament specialty that most aggravates me, I think. It's this awkward thing sticking out the side of the rules that serves no purpose. Even if it's all-but-never rolled, stuff like Memory does actually have *a* purpose which could at least *theoretically* come about.

I understand your reticence (wise!), but how much do passive values actually come into play? It is my impression that outside of combat/jousting and to a lesser extent intrigue it doesn't come up much at all - occasionally passive awareness, and passive endurance against poisons.

It would have an impact on Intrigues - with a lower TN, Read Opponent action would be a *lot* more reliable. Still not worth it with people with Persuasion 5 (or non-chivalrous types Will 3, maybe), but in a match between two people with Persuasion & Wills of 4, the delay in starting could be catch-uppable (pardon while I murder the language) before the end of the intrigue, particularly with the new Frustration mechanics.


And I wasn't sure whether to post these, but since I'm posting anyway:
From Ser Symon Starwood's description:

Ser Symon, Lord Ulbert's eldest son and heir, squired and earned his spurs at the Red Keep for Ser Ormdond Yronwood

I believe it should be 'Ormond', from the 'cast of thousands' page.

rumor has it that no respectable knight of the Reach was willing to accept a half-Dornish squire (the prevailing opinion along the Mander is that no self-respecting knight would do so in the first place)

Can't quite parse the bit in brackets. Could do with a bit of re-phrasing?

[Baelon Drakeson]

I understand your reticence (wise!), but how much do passive values actually come into play? It is my impression that outside of combat/jousting and to a lesser extent intrigue it doesn't come up much at all - occasionally passive awareness, and passive endurance against poisons.

It would have an impact on Intrigues - with a lower TN, Read Opponent action would be a *lot* more reliable.  Still not worth it with people with Persuasion 5 (or non-chivalrous types Will 3, maybe), but in a match between two people with Persuasion & Wills of 4, the delay in starting could be catch-uppable (pardon while I murder the language) before the end of the intrigue, particularly with the new Frustration mechanics.

Isn't that a good thing? I mean, the instigating idea was to make more combat actions viable, to add variety to combats beyond "knockdown, attack. aim, attack."; making a little used intrigue action more viable seems like it fits right in with that notion. It also makes Deception and the RO-related benefits useful to a wider variety of schemers, which seems in-line with many of the existing intrigue changes.

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Error checks:

• On the Intrigue page under Techniques, it states "Persuasion and Seduction now deal influence based on Awareness." I presume that is supposed be "Charm and Seduction".
  
• Same page under Expanded Techniques, Bargain is described as "a strictly transnational approach", which I presume should be "It is a strictly transactional approach" (though my browser's spellcheck wants to change that back to transnational, which is probably how it got that way to begin with)
  

Also it might be a good idea to have different names for the two types of frustration, perhaps 'agitation' for the -1 and 'frustration' for the -1D. Mostly this would be good for clarity in tracking - if you have 2 frustration that could be -2D, -1d-1, or -2.

You could limit them to half-will, rounded however to keep it more or less the same as it is now, but I think it would be more interesting to discourage taking them the same way that injuries and wounds are discouraged - have the penalties apply to everything and last longer than that scene. Perhaps recover 1 'agitation' per hour and one 'frustration' per every 4? That could open up interesting plots like having someone pick a fight (maybe using Incite to get them to do it) with a tourney competitor before a match to weaken them, etc; or try to time your intrigue such they are less willing to fully commit to resisting. I mean, most people can't just shrug off the effects of a psychological struggle instantaneously - having a big fight with a loved one or a bad day at work can easily affect someone for hours after or even into the next day, and a troubled mind can interfere with all sorts of things (which is one reason why sports teams have psychologists on staff).

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