please explain the knights subclasses...

[ShadowHawk]

I have been looking through the books and none of them have the subclass system that PBlackCrow had in his and I just need to know some details. I know they have knightly orders, but I am at a loss right now. Shannon explained it all to me once before, but I have totally forgotten most of it. I only remember bits and pieces, uh mostly about wondering/roaming knights because that was what I was trying to portray...a "simple country knight of no breading, knighted by a knight of a baroness on the battlefield for saving many people", not tied to any lord, city, church, kingdom, cause, order, etc...which was a total and complete lie, I was a knight working for the king as a spy. Not exactly sure what that would be called.

[filo_clarke]

Is there a question here? Perhaps you could be a bit more specific about what you are asking for?

[glitterboy2098]

do you mean the family background tables? pg86 in the PFRPG main book?

these are not sub-classes so much as "origins". it gives your character a backstory framework to build a personal backstory off of. plus it has few skill section options by background.

for example, when i roleld up my Wolfen Knight, i rolled a "New Knight". a knight that gradually rose up the ranks from a more humble beginning. since i was making him for a non-canon wolfen knightly order, i decided that he was an orphan taken in by an older knight, and worked his way up from Squire. used the skill options for that background to take rogue skills like pick pocketing, Palming, and streetwise.. on the idea that he spent his childhood abandoned on the streets. since rogue skills aren't otherwise available to knights (except for in secondaries) this gave him a bit of uniqueness. (combined with the pick locks skill i took in the secondaries, it also served as justification for playing him as a bit of a roguish character, willing to bend the rules of both his order and local laws)

[drewkitty ~..~]

The Text you are looking for is under the heading "Family Background".

[ShadowHawk]

what are the subclasses for knights, and a basic description of what they do? I remember what a wondering knight is. if you could as so, please explan knightly orders? Ineed something to incorporating into the game. I have a player with a knight, his status needs to be raised. he did something in game and the people of a town are talking about it and news has reached the both the Earl who knighted him and the king.

[ShadowHawk]

what are the subclasses for knights, and a basic description of what they do? I remember what a wondering knight is. if you could as so, please explan knightly orders? Ineed something to incorporating into the game. I have a player with a knight, his status needs to be raised. he did something in game and the people of a town are talking about it and news has reached the both the Earl who knighted him and the king.

[glitterboy2098]

as mentioned there are not sub-classes. just family origins. basically there are different ways to become a knight, which means you can get a variety of people from many different backgrounds. you have your "joined the army, did well, got made a knight", your "son of a knight", your "from a noble family", etc. basically explains what you were before becoming a knight, and in OCC terms it also gives you a few special skill options to reflect your characters origins.

Knightly orders are organizations which knights can join. the knight wears their colors and symbols, they have internal ranks separate from their military ranks, and the order will sometimes have missions and instructions for the knight separate from whatever noble or royalty the knight also serves.

think about knightly orders a bit like Clan's in MMO games. only with more social standing in the setting.

you have both international orders (real life examples: Knights Templar, Knights Hospitaliers, Teutonic knights, knights of malta) that have members from multiple kingdoms (which sometimes caused some issues with loyalty to the nobles/king)
and "national" orders that were basically limited to knights from a specific kingdom (real life examples: Order of the Garter, Order of the Thistle, Order of St. Micheal and St.George, Order of St.Olav, Order of Vasa, etc.)

International orders are separate from the various kingdom's ruling classes, and Knights which join them end up with dual loyalties.. their feudal loyalty (the ties they have within the kingdom) is to their lord and the king, which granted them the stewardship of specific lands and castles. (the higher the knights rank within the kingdom's nobility, the more lands he oversee's. really high ones may be granted ownership of lands and made high noblemen)
but they'd also have loyalty ties to the order, which exists separate from nationality. which makes those orders sometimes useful to a kingdom (if fighting a war with some enemies, you can call for aid from an international order and knights from all over will come help.) but often was a problem with wars against neighbors (when an order has members from two nations fighting each other, that order's members will often be suspected of not being fully loyal to the kingdom)

national orders tend to be more "awards".. they tend to be chivalry orders, meaning their focus is heavy on proper knightly behavior and loyalty to the kingdom. membership in such orders tend to be given by the king to those knights that distinguish themselves by their actions and loyalty. as a way of telling both the knight and the kingdom how good a job that knight is doing. such orders also tend to carry obligations of service beyond times of war, as well. sometimes (like with england In real life), a kingdom will have several such orders, some more prestigious than others.

note that in real life orders can end up between these too.. sometimes you had a national order that wasn't created by a king (so seperate like an international order, but drew its members from a single kingdom), and in real life some orders have gone from one typeto the other. the jknights of malta for example, were originally and international order, then became a national one when malta became a country, and have since grown back into an international one again. the Tuetonic Knights were similar.. started as an international order drawing from a certain region, then after being forced out of their original home, went and conquered part of europe, becoming effectively a national order.. then as that empire split up and went through changes, it grew back into an international one again.


also note.. the "national vs international" distinction is one i use for explanation, but isn't the one most historians use. they tend to prefer Military vs chivaric.. but that's more a division of focus, not structure/scope.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chivalric_order
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_ ... society%29

military orders being more focused on fighting, and chivalric orders being a bit more focused on behavior.



in the scenario given with a knight that has done good things and attracted notice, you have a few options. first is to elevate the knight's noble rank.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_and_noble_ranks
so say, now he's a baron with a small bit of land to call his own, instead of just a knight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron
as a baron he'd be expected to manage a village or small castle, he'd be expected to train and maintain the means to raise a company of men, possibly a few lower ranking knights to command.

or you could have him inducted into a chivalric order for the kingdom. which doesn't carry with it any extra wealth or land but does give him a bit more prominence when working with nobles or other knights from the kingdom. sometimes this comes with a new position, like being added to a certain military unit. the kings guard, etc.

or, if neither of those would work for your game, you could have the king/lord give him a ceremony of recognition, a small showy award, give him a small gift (like a set of custom armor, a new fancier sword, a new horse, something like that. generally something that will look awesome but not be very powerful)

[pblackcrow]

Dude, you'll be here next week. I'll be happy to go over things with you.

[ShadowHawk]

ok. thanks man.

[Veknironth]

Well, I can't really answer the Knight sub-classes question, but I can take a stab at what is next for the PC. If he's knighted by the local nobleman, a lot depends on what the nobleman wants.

It could be a purely political move. The knight is a local hero and by knighting him, the local nobleman gets to associate himself with the knight and his deeds. This is purely ceremonial and the new knight doesn't really benefit from it outside of the local area. Maybe he gets a gift like a new sword or something useless like a key to the city. The knight goes on as before, just a little bit richer and with more local respect.

If the nobleman liked the cut of the knight's jib, then maybe he knights him to bring him into his employ. He lauds him with the ceremony and now the knight is on the payroll. He might receive a stipend, but he certainly would get armor, weapons, horse, etc. Of course, now you're sort of beholden to this new patron. Makes for some good role-playing as the nobleman can be a source of adventure ideas, ordering the knight to go somewhere to handle a problem. Of course, the knight is now somewhat locked into that area and that can limit the scope of the adventure possibilities. Still, just think of the fun when the group is told of the nobleman being a jerk and the torn loyalties of the knight - especially if the negative information about the nobleman is a little dubious.

It's unlikely, given how sought after these things are, but maybe the knight is now a landed noble. He gets a little plot of land as Glitterboy said and now he has to levy taxes, raise a militia, protect the populous, send support to his superiors, etc. Sort of a game killer for the PC, even though it would be great for the actual character.

The last is Glitterboy's international knight order. The nobleman brings the knight into this order and now he's part of a network of do-gooders or whatever. Sort of like a peasant's Undead Hunter or whatever. Now the knight might have a tabard, sigil, necklace, or other signifier that he can use wherever other members of the Order might be. He also might be called upon to help them with other things. These are things he may or may not agree with.

Depending on the situation, the knight has to decide if the life offered is one he wants. None of these come without strings.

-Vek
"I do take the fun out of being knighted."