I haven't really posted on here with any sort of commentary as to why I've made all sorts of sweeping and wholesale changes to both underlying assumptions and mechanics in MLT which creates numerous differences with ACKS as written.
One of the stark differences which will be immediately apparent to anyone who's looked at the PCs on the wiki is how competent they are.
Firstly, I started them at 5th level. I wanted to avoid the random crapshoot you get at lower levels of older D&D where a lucky blow will kill a PC. Not only that, I wanted them to be leaders in their own right, and have meaningful retinues right from the start. That meant a higher level, and 5th seems to be in that sweet spot of entering the leadership phase (everyone gets a henchman-morale-boosting feature from their class) but where they are still able to participate personally and have some risk. Hit points are in the 20s to 30s range (and non-random) so a single blow, even with damage dice doubled, won't take them down.
Secondly, I immediately binned 3d6 in order. For a number of reasons. Primarily, because it produces low stats where you don't necessarily want them. Also because the whole point was that the PCs were exceptional people picked out by Fortune for great things. We as a group like to approach a game with a concept, then build to that, not roll the dice and try to work out what we have. Furthermore, there was real concern about the possible range of competence within the party - ie one person rolling really well while another rolled badly. We fixed that by having everyone roll to generate an array, but that anyone could use anyone else's array. The method for PCs, to ensure they got some good numbers was to make seven rolls and take the best six. They were: 1d6+12, 2d6+6 twice and 3d6 four times.
We got the following arrays:
17, 17, 15, 15, 11, 9
18, 14, 12, 12, 10, 8
17, 14, 13, 12, 11, 11
17, 16, 15, 15, 11, 9
I also allowed moving 2 points, so everyone went for the first one, though not everyone got used that to get 18s (one PC went for the maximal modifier spread of four 16s). Lastly, in keeping with taking the random out of chargen, they all got max hit points for 1st level, then half-HD for every level thereafter.
I'm not tracking XP, and after some discussion the players said they were actually quite happy with levelling when it made sense to do so without any book-keeping. All the classes were modified so that their XP progressions were roughly equal, so that levelling at the same time wouldn't advantage anyone. They ended up all choosing something based on the Fighter frame; Explorer, Fighter and two homebrewed (not by me!) classes the Diplomat and Warlord (Aristocrat).
I've also changed the Proficiencies progression, which is no longer linked to class, but simply level. Everyone gets a new General Proficiency at every even-numbered level, and a Class Proficiency at every odd-numbered level. This intentionally made for more competent characters, and also a much broader range of variety between them. The Diplomat, with his 18 Int, ended up with an obscene number of them, and what I like is that everyone took things that rounded them out. So for example Rhyanidd has Prophecy and Theology (Druidic) - she's an actual priestess as well as warrior-princess and has prophetic dreams (cue GM being able to make up cryptic foreshadowing stuff) and Performance (Rhetoric). If you were really short of slots, those aren't the sorts of things you'd prioritise.
I've also changed the base numbers for aging slightly, adding some variability as to when it kicks in, and factoring physicality. Two PCs rolled theirs to find out when they'd get their first aging penalties.
Then to henchmen. Everyone went with their maximum number, I don't think they're that concerned with having to share their spoils. Not only that, we agreed they'd be the pool of "backup characters" from which new PCs would be drawn (equalised to the level of everyone else, should that happen) and I think they wanted as many choices as possible. I generated the henchmen using a similar process to the PCs, though they were done individually, rather than with an array for their ability scores. They also used a slightly less generous 2d6+6 twice and 3d6 five times, drop lowest and assign at will with 2 points of re-assignment. Though that still produced a few henchmen with better stats than the PCs, though most were much more normal. Again the notion was that exceptional people tend to attract similarly exceptional people to their retinues. Given the mercenary pasts of most of the PCs, anyone less-than-stellar would probably have been killed off anyway.
What they got was one 3rd level, two 2nd level, and everyone else is 1st level. They also came with their basic equipment, but if the PCs wanted to buy them extra stuff, that raised their morale. I also assumed they had gotten all their levels with the PC, which led to some having extremely high morale when combined with Proficiencies (I think the highest is +6). It's notable how they've each got their own unifying theme or signature.
They're a pretty massive mob of NPCs right now, but I expect that to change when they arrive in Massalia and break off to do various things. I'm hoping we might get to experiment with some troupe-style play, where players might run one of their henchmen instead of their PC in certain situations, and possible even playing someone else's henchmen sometimes too. Thus if Rhyanidd and her bodyguard are sent off deep into the wilds of Gallia on some secret mission, each player picks up one of them as their character for that segment.
And there we have it.