So, I got the TOR books a couple weeks ago, and gave them what I thought was a decent read through, and it struck me that Heart is essentially the strongest Ability. This notion was born out in play last Friday, when I was running the adventure out of the book and my players created a dwarf with heart 2 and an elf with heart 3. They were quickly made weary and subsequently blew most of their checks the entire night and both players became pretty soured on the game.
(This is aside from the fact that it took me 15 minutes to try and track down what exactly you rolled for Fatigue checks, it's not in the description of the Travel skill nor is it stated in the Journey section, I gave up and found it later.)

Body states in its description that "every aspect of a character that relies on vigour or physical well being is represented in the game by Body." This phrase exists, as far as I can tell, to punish people who are skimming the rules. Body has nothing to do with how quickly you fatigue, how tough you are, how quickly you recover from wounds, or how much weight you can carry. All of those things are represented by Heart.

In an effort to make Body do what it says on the tin, I'm using the following rules for my game. Maybe you ran up against the same thing and this might help.

Subtract Body from your Fatigue score.
This serves to both represent that a strong person can carry more weight, as well as do it for longer before becoming tired.

You can roll Athletics or Travel for Fatigue checks
This serves to not dump the chance to gain more fatigue on a Heart based skill, so that players that chose to play hardy characters and not put points in Travel don't have a disincentive to be adventurers. (All cultural skill packages have at least a point in athletics or travel.)

Post Battle recovery uses Body or Heart
This serves to make a post exertion recovery based on physical fitness not willingness to go on. Note that prolonged rest endurance gain is still based on Heart.

What say you?

I noticed the same issues you mentioned as well when I ran a one-shot for some friends Monday night. Some heroes only had a dot in travel which resulted in SEVERAL failed travel rolls. The frustration was so thick at the table you could cut it with a knife.

I like your options, and I may give them a shot.

Thanks! Let me know how they work out for you.

I have a similar notion, re:body. It needs to allow someone to wear heavy armor a little more easily. My intuition tells me your numbers go a bit too far, though.

I've bounced around two ideas, neither fully-fleshed out:

1) subtract some amount from the armor score, leaving minimum 1, based on body. (note armor, not weapons, helmet, shield).

2) Change the target number of fatigue rolls based on body.


I like the 2nd better, but I don't know the implications yet. The reason I like the 2nd better is that body also represents agility, balance, etc, so I can visualize a big burly guy resisting fatigue, or a person who is light on their feet travelling more easily (e.g. legolas on top of the snow)

-Jeff

One more item - I stressed to my players that wearing mail could be a real issue if they travel, so there was buy-in on their part at start.

One more thing, I believe some people in this forum have made a mistake prior...failed rolls increase your fatigue by your travelling gear (ie 1 or 2 points). It should take many failed fatigue rolls to wear someone out.

-Jeff

No, we knew about the fatigue only going up by one in spring or two in winter. That's not the issue.
The issue is a basic unfairness in the rules that you have little opportunity to do anything about if you picked a culture that doesn't have travel. It's a check so fundamental in the system that everyone should be able to do it. And by everyone, I'm not talking about the "standard" member of that particular culture. I'm talking about adventurers of that particular culture that the rules for PCs represent. Otherwise you couldn't in a million years Hobbits starting with a point of travel.
The advantage to letting athletics sub for travel only on fatigue tests is so most cultures start with 2 points in one or the other, which I have to stress, still means they will fail it more than 50% of the time. This allows players to actually make a choice with their discretionary 10 points, rather than having only 7 real discretionary points since 3 of them need to be tied up in travel.

Sorry, I'm not understanding this. Why is it fundamental that everyone should be able to travel without becoming fatigued? And if it is fundamentally so, what's the point in rolling for it? Shouldn't you just abolish the rolls altogether? It seems easier to me.

Fatigue checks are just ridiculous in number. Based on what I've seen from actual play, the total number of dice rolls splits into three roughly equally sized groups: Combat skill rolls, Travel checks to resist fatigue, and all other rolls put together. It's complete overkill, especially given that fully half the starting cultures begin play without any ranks in the skill.

I think the original concern was that Body doesn't affect your ability to travel in a meaningful way. Which seems non-intuitive.

I like some of the ideas in the original post. Why wouldn't someone high in Athletics travel well? They might not take the best route, but their fitness would still serve them well. Whereas someone with Travel might not be quite as physically fit, but take optimum routes to get where they're wanting to go. Thus rolls based on either Athletics or Travel.

Same with Body or Heart for recovery. It certainly makes sense that someone with a high level of "vigor or well being" could recover from injuries more quickly than someone without. But someone with tremendous will or desire might also do so, thus the either/or.

I'm not sure about subtracting Body from Fatigue. But something like that could be adjusted too. Like half your Body score subtracted for example.

I think wondering why the game uses Heart for things that would intuitively fit with Body is something worth talking about up here.

I think there are two thoughts in this thread:

1) Is body under-represented in the system, especially as far as fatigue rolls is concerned?

2) Is the percentage of fatigue rolls too much in actual play, practically requiring a high travel score?


I strongly believe in the 1st. I think wits is very important (passive parry value), and heart is also huge, as stated above. Body is niche...affecting superior damage results in combat.

I don't actually agree with the second. I think the better way to look at it is that a) novice players should not undertake long journeys without rest-stops, and don't wear mail unless you're taking a short trip.

My goal is to either make it easier to wear mail for high-body characters (without changing the result of wearing leather at all), or to allow high-body characters to travel a bit more easily. I think the latter is a bit easier to achieve elegantly, but I've only played the game once so I'm very wary of making that change.

-Jeff

Wait, you've only played once? If that's the case, you really need to not be thinking about house rules yet.

I've been through a dozen sessions or so, which is really as much experience as one can have with this game. I know from playing other systems that one session, one read through, one round of character building, one anything is not enough to get a grasp of how things fit together.

This has been discussed already, but I think one roll per day is reasonable enough *provided* that you're narrating each day's travel one day at a time, describing the scenery and the weather, seeing whether any unexpected incidents occur, etc.

If you just want to quickly gloss over a 30-day journey and get on with what happens when the PCs arrive, I agree the number of rolls is excessive. In that case, I think some simpler approach should be taken, such as increasing everyone's Fatigue by a fixed number (minus their Travel skill, perhaps) and leaving it at that. Or if they are travelling to a haven where they can rest up for a while, don't address it mechanically at all. Just move on.

In Tolkien, the journey is generally a big part of the story. But if it's not the part you're interested in, I wouldn't let it get in the way, no matter what the rules say.

I would say very much this.

It appeared to me that fatigue rolls were really a way of making characters rest for the night, after all, Endurance comes back pretty quickly if you're not wounded.

I find the journey rules ideal not just for planning a travel, but if you are hunting Orcs across country. You can use the system to see if the characters are gaining etc.

As to the OP mentioning Body,
I thought the trade off was that Body is the only attribute that seems to get used for weapon skill rolls. Given how often characters are likely to engage in combat that balances things rather well for me (and my lot are not combat bunnies in general either).

Endurance damage (a reduction of your current endurance score below the maximum) heals daily.

Fatigue damage (an increase of your fatigue score above the base value) does not go away until you spend time resting in a safe place of some sort.

I'm going to guess that you have confused the two.

When a character fails a Journey roll (the most used kind of Travel check) he receives additional Fatigue which does not clear until resting in a safe place of some sort. When a character is "hit" in combat, he takes Endurance Damage, which heals at a fairly generous rate unless wounded.

When a character's current endurance (Max - damage received) is less than his current fatigue (base + accrued travel penalties) he is Weary, which means he ignores all 1s, 2s, and 3s on any and all d6s he rolls until he stops being weary (which is why the TOR d6 dice have those numbers outlined and the larger ones filled in). A character does not fall unconscious until his current endurance is reduced to zero.

Bob's interpretation is my understanding too. That's why I only suggested ignoring Fatigue altogether "if they are travelling to a haven where they can rest up for a while", because that's the circumstances needed for recovery.

Wits increases the difficult of being hit on every single roll.   Body only affects the damage of great and extraordinary successes.
 
Going to theme/character conception; if you want to build a classic tank, you would be tempted to build a guy with a high body, carrying a big shield and mail.  The system reality is that you should trust in wits to keep you from being hit, and heart to avoid growing tired from carrying the big shield and mail.  Body never enters the picture.
 
Again, I just want to see body factor into the play between encumbrance and fatigue somehow.  Whether it makes wearing heavy armor easier, or makes travel easier (not 100%, just a bit), I’d like to see it be a factor.  This will have the added affect, I feel of making body more worthwhile overall.
 
-Jeff

Body also affects the range of weapons. But I agree it seems a bit underpowered, even considering that we're going for "literary realism" here, if you see what I mean.

One possibility might be to restrict the use of the largest weapons and shields to those with sufficient Body to wield them effectively. Anything with "great" at the beginning of its name, basically.

There seems to be a consensus that Body needs to contribute more in some way.

What we need now is a consensus on what that should be; anyone care to put together a list of the suggestions so far?

Brainstorming some concrete thoughts (not intending all to be used):

1) Endurance = X-3+body+heart. Current equation is X+heart.

This will have travel and combat implications.

2) Travel TN= TN+3-body.

This will have major travel implications.

3) Injury TN= TN+3-body.

combat implications


All of these are designed with the thought that a high body can be agility or toughness or strength or whatever...so (for example) body helps you to avoid injury, but we don't care if you are gritting it out or dodging.

-Jeff

Would the simple solution of using travel or atheltics to resist travel fatigue correct the problem with little secondary effects? As well as give body a little more umph.

I see two items:

attributes used by spending hope: I think they are all relevant and don't worry about any of them being underused.

attributes having automatic affects: see my earlier post. I feel wits and heart are far more important. i understand that I may be off and find that damage rolls are hugely important


I see what's being done here: by allowing athletics, you give an opportunity to spend a hope point to involve body, as well as allowing players an alternative to always taking travel. I'm not sure that's enough.


-Jeff

Body has one big advantage, it adds to armor rolls.

Even when you're wearing leather, having a hope point spare and 6 or 7 in body will let you pass most of the minor wounds! That isn't always true with 2 or 3 points in body.

If you spend a point of hope on the roll.

Unfortunately, "has enough points of hope to spare" and "has a high enough body for it to matter" tend to be mutually exclusive character designs. A hobbit or a woodman has the hope, but not much body; a dwarf or a beorning has the body but not much hope.

Fundamentally, that's the problem with Body. Its two features (beyond the base "add to this set of eight common skills") are "add extra damage on a tengwar" and "add to attack/defense when spending hope". Unfortunately, being able to spend hope on attacks/defense doesn't mean that much, because characters with a high body are going to tend to have a high valour / low wisdom, and have a lower heart than they otherwise would, both of which mean spending hope isn't something they can do as much.

I like this as it is simple and as mentioned has little secondary effects. Just as Lore,Song, Riddle/ Explore, Hunt/ Persuade,Awe, Courtesy are different skill that can be used on similar tasks.

The AB says "While certainly the product of experience, the use of Travel benefits mostly from a hero’s strength of spirit." While "Athletics is a broad skill, covering most of the physical activities that a hero might undertake while adventuring, ..., generally gained through continuous exercise and daily exertion.''

I see one as the will to keep going and the other as the fitness to keep going.

Travel might complete a journey breathless but glad while fitness might complete the journey hale but grumpy.

Sorry for the poor analogy but I think you get the idea.

True, you got a point.

We are still in the beginning of our campaign, so we aren't going to take drastic changes to the system. But i'm curious to see how often there will be great an extraordinary successes once the characters have 3 or 4 points in their weapon skills. Maybe we will see the difference between high body and low body characters then, i don't know...

If i would be making any changes, it would be with the endurance points, something like endurance = (hearth + body)/2 or take the highest of body or hearth to calculate endurance. It would indirectly affect travelling and fatigue.

I for one like the idea of being able to use Athletics or Travel; it seems like a nice clean fit, doesn't require any math, does double duty by partially addressing the general lack of travel ranks in most cultures, and appears to be the most popular option overall.

I'm not quite sure it's enough, but that's what playtests are for.

I'm curious, as I follow this post I keep asking myself, "why aren't players spending starting experience to purchase ranks in Tavel?" As the LM for my group, I was clear up front on the mechanics. This was especially true given the centrality of journeys in both the game and the sources. So most of my players developed some competency in Travel during character creation as part of their backstory. One of the players who opted not to develop Travel had a really good reason that was part of their backstory. Another player opted not to because they did not want to "waste" their starting experience. Of the two, one dealt with the affects of travel quite graciously, and the other grumbled the entire way. You can imagine who grumbled and who kept their spirits up.

The really amusing part, this first adventure of ours that I am alluding to reminded me of The Hobbit.

So again, I am just wondering why people aren't spending experience on Travel as an alternative to modifying the rules?

For me it seems that most tasks have more than one skill that can be used. I gave a few examples above. I just want to add another option. A skilled traveler option and a hardy adventurer option. One who may used to the hardships of travel and one were physical prowess gets him through.

They are. That's not the problem.

The problem is "travel checks to resist fatigue are rolled more often than every other use of a common skill combined".

The problem is that fully half the starting cultures begin with zero ranks in the skill, and between the potential TNs and the frequency of the checks, one needs at least two ranks in order to function. If they want to be warrior types, they've got to drop 6 xp into their weapon skill, which only leaves 4, and three of those have to go into travel, which leaves a whopping one point for actual customization.

The problem is that every character has to have two ranks in the skill to function, and most don't start with that. If it's really so bloody important, why doesn't every character already have it?

I don't know but you can also opt not spending anything in travel, not encumbering yourself too much and making sure you have a pony or a boat and planing your route with some places you can rest for a few days so you don't end up completely stained.

Important test will be 16 anyway or even more for Mirkwood. Which means you'll need at least 3 points in travel if you want to have a chance at succeeding a few rolls

A suggested reason, the folk of Wilderland before the slaying of Smaug and the retreat of the Necromancer were isolated. They did not travel; or, better said, travel is not a cultural trait of Wilderland's people just beginning the process of looking outward to a world over the horizon.

In game mechanics, no starting Travel ranks. However, there are exceptions that are grounded in Tolkien's Middle-earth. The Bardings are the culture least isolated and most involved in trade; Bardings have two ranks. Durin's line has been homeless for generations, wandering and relocating from the Blue Mountains to the Iron Hills. As an until recently dispersed and homeless people, the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain have three ranks. (When I suggest homeless some will think of the Iron Hills, but what I'm referring to is an ancestral seat where the King in the Line of Durin sits. The Iron Hills was nothing more than a colony for a remnant of Durin's folk.) Beornings and Woodmen are portrayed as intimately tied to geographical s. Neither travelers or traders, their standards of living point to cultural economies that leave little time for anything but self-sufficient survival. Theoretically, little time to acquire travel as a cultural trait. Mirkwood's Elves have all but given up the wider world for their protected domain. They have retreated into their realm and ward the marches. In their background, acknowledgement is given to the outward facing elves who work the rafts between the King's halls and the Men of Lake-town. Hence, Travel is a favored skill because of their experience in moving outside their own lands; but, the cultural tendency still dominates. And, Hobbits...? That is an interesting one to think about. Why do they have one rank? With their standard of living, they have the time and leisure to travel the length and breadth of the Shire. While not a great journey in its own right, it's more than a culture that requires constant attention to survival.

And there may be the key to understanding journey and Travel as it relates to the game design. The accumulation of Fatigue because of failed Tests involves poor preparation and not necessarily execution. Fatigue increases by the encumbrance rating of your gear on the assumption that you packed things unnecessarily, or couldn't part with that much cherished heirloom you didn't want to leave behind, or something you thought you needed but really didn't need. Fatigue Tests are essentially about skill in traveling and not being fit enough to travel per se. Broaden this to include cultural tendencies, where peoples of a given culture that will have had the opportunity to travel will be better prepared for traveling. This is the foundation. Customization as described in character creation then allows players to make personal choices for their characters, but the cultural foundation is still there. That then creates cultural oddities and unique individuals within a community.

Again this is from the point of view of the game mechanics and Tolkien's narrative, which for some may not be intuititve or even correct. Just some initial thoughts...

Regards,
E

Bob,
 
I feel a bit of a disconnect here.  The book aren’t in front of me, but I remember making one travel role for a 4-day period (per-player)…you seem to be doing the reverse (multiple per day)?
 
I have other issues (presented in posts above), but I didn’t find the sheer number of travel rolls to be an issue.
 
-Jeff

Eluadin thank you for the thoughtful response.

As I recall, the number of travels rolls is determined by (how far you are going) * (the terrain you are traveling on) * (modifiers, like roads).

But that assumes the party doesn't stop or detour. For instance, if the party is looking for a pair of lost dwarves (pulling from the intro scenario yet again, primarily because it's the only shared adventure we all have), and they get an Eye of Sauron, which results in three orcs due to GM rolling something nasty on his chart (or not understanding what he was supposed to do, or just throwing it in for fun), and the party mistakenly assumes the random encounter is actually relevant, and go off into the very corrupted woods (because they took the old road like morons) for several days, additional travel rolls might be called for.

So yeah, my experience with the stock adventure was apparently kind of a fluke.

In other news, how far do your characters tend to travel in a 4-6 hour session? From what I've been hearing in this thread, we seem to do rather more than is normal - Rascobel or Beorn's to Laketown, or Erabor to Mirabar (or whatever the other dwarf city is to the East) and back, etc. Maybe that's my problem - I feel like there's too much travel because we, rather than the game in general, travel too much.

Wow! This thread blew up!
I think I touched a nerve here...

BobChuck, you seem to understand my problem with the rules. That is that the travel roll is integral, and skill selection is limited. Further, with zero points in a skill, you still have to roll really well or spending Hope won't have any effect at all. That's a different design flaw though, and should be discussed in another thread, if at all.

Page 34 says one fatigue test every 3-6 days, depending on season.

-Jeff

The fact that body affects weapon ranges is 100% meaningless since there's no combat distances anywhere else in the game. I don't understand why ranged weapon ranges are in the game at all.
It's basically LM fiat as to whether you're in range, and since characters don't have a movement score it's up to the LM as to whether you can get close enough or not when you act.
And since there is no ranged only combat apart from the opening volley, after which enemies close to melee range*, numerical range literally doesn't matter, only narrative range matters.


(*and even if you have a couple buddies, there's no justification for saying they're out of range of even thrown objects)

You know, as I typed that I realized that one simple answer might be one fatigue test every body+n days, where n is 0-3 depending on season. That might make body too potent, though.

That's a decent idea, at least it lets body figure in somehow.
But I generally like fixes that are easy swaps rather than adding extra math in. The only thing you'd actually have to remember about the rules I set forth, is that you recover body after battle and heart when you sleep.
The reduction in encumbrance is figured in already, and the skill swap uses a different, intuitive skill on the same line.
Easy fixes that are "good enough" appeal to me more than math fixes that get it exactly right. At least for this game.