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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mad Mac" data-source="post: 2883786" data-attributes="member: 27873">Eh, while it's true that a Feudal Kings power came directly from his control over his nobles, winning their loyalty was almost always a lot more subtle than "King Uber-Knickers the 3rd" threatning to personally go over there and start punching people in the face.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  Land, Titles, political marriages, military strength, diplomacy...these are the tools of a successful king. It's important to be seen as strong, but that's more about who you already have on your side than the size of the aspiring King's biceps. Now, having a track record of being successful on the battlefield, that's a big plus in winning the respect of other warriors, and is good for the resume, so to speak. But again, few historical rulers power hinged completely on how many dudes with swords they could personally smoke at once, so I don't see any reason to expect a D&D world to work that way.  It'd be more realistic to say that rulers would be expected to be capable individuals with a least a few levels under their belts, but Charisma is going to go a lot farther than being a notorious spiked chain master, imo.</blockquote>