Hi Guys,

One one of my players wants to create a Barding but would rathers have a named weapon type (Longswords) rather than a group (swords, which Bardings get) so that he can make if favoured.

I don't have an issue with this any reason not to?

Cheers,

Steve

I'd still make him pick one of the weapon skill groups and then let him spend some of his 10 starter points on the Longsword.

Ask your player to go with Wisdom as opposed to Valour and take the 'Expertise' Mastery. This allows a character to take an extra favoured skill. Just tell him to choose Longsword as a Favoured Skill from his cultural weapon group.

That works as well. One of my players went down this route with their wood elf. Bought Longsword as an additional weapon skill then picked the Expertise virtue to favour it. If they already have the (Swords) cultural skill, then the Longsword would break out at that current skill level, and then have to be improved separately.

Agree with both Halbarad's and Valarian's suggestion - ie, *not* letting him swap the "Swords" group weaponskill for Longsword but stating that he has to purchase it separately/additionally.

Thanks for the feedback and I like the ideas.

One thing though, does it really matter, to me it's not a deal breaker and if it would make his character more enjoyable then I am tempted, or does it give him a particular edge say over the long-hafted axe the woodman gets?

I think it depends on how much you want to go "by the book" or how much you want players to be able to customize thier starting cultural basics....

personally I find having a favored weapon is just slightly more powerfull than a cul;tural starting skill cause once the character chooses which weapon he wants to use he's pretty much locked in.. to get to the same point they have to use a mastery from incresing wisdom... on the other hand it's nto going to change game balence. No long sword isn't more powerfull than long hafted axe... not in my eyes... If you want platers to be able to make small substitutions for starting weapon skills it is not going to unbalnce your game.

If it's gong to have an impact on how excited the players is about his character, or if they feel that they are missing out cause all the other players got to start with favored weapons in what they wanted to use I say go for it.

A player in my campaign had a dwarf character, but he wanted to have a sword as his starting weapon, and no axe. I let him have a sword with 2 skill levels, unfavoured, and it hasn't really made a difference. It helped that he had a reason for a sword though

Big, I don't think you'll find that there's a balance problem, in so much as, the player who you are making an allowance for is not going to be suddenly kicking out 25 points of damage per hit because you allowed that. That's not the issue at all.

To me, there are two reasons not to do this:

1. Fairness. If you let one player swap out a starting package weapon skill, then you should extend that to all players. Maybe they won't take advantage of that, and that's fine.

2. World Believability. This is a bigger part of why I might say no, and it's a little subtle and tough to understand. But basically, the goal of the game is to play characters who start as (at risk of using a negative term) stereotypical for their respective cultures. That means a dwarf a dwarf starting with a mattock or axe and not a bow or spear. That means beornings with spears or axes, not swords. Because, while yes, they *can* come across those weapon skills later on through adventuring and experiencing different cultures, that opportunity is NOT what the starting skill package represents. The starting skill package, to include weapons, represents the typical life for that culture up to the point where they start going adventuring. When you allow a player to customize that to his own design, you chip away a little bit at establishing the starting baseline of "normalcy" in a world that is intended to represent Tolkien's Wilderland at the end of the 3rd age.

I agree with Roc on this point.

Once you start down the path of making wholesale minimizing of what makes sense in the world.....

Next you'll have a good drow wielding two scimitars wanting to join your group!

How did you know what my elf wanted to do???

I agree with what your saying, but longsword is part of the sword group, so as he is being trained he took a preference to that weapon?

Not such a large leap as a elf wanting to use a war mattock, wouldn't you agree.

The point about heroes being representative of their cultures i think is a good one. It's one of the things I really like about the game, that a Barding feels quite a lot different from any other mannish culture. Different skills, different attributes, but especially different weapons. That said I might be concerned if there existed another culture that had more ready access to long swords. There are not yet any but there might be in future releases, It would not surprise me if they gave this to one of the races from the upcoming Rivendale supplement, though who know when that would be.

However my feeling is still that if the weapon falls very close to (or within) the existing cultural weapons it ought to be okay. That's just me, and honestly I haven't had any players ask to switch out... the cultures do have a lot to distinguish themselves from one another.

I definitely would not let a woodsman take sword skill instead of long hafted axe, or an elf take great axe instead of bow, but if a woodsman asked to have (axes) instead of long hafted axe or even axe instead I'd consider it. Of course if the character wanted t take the bearded long axe reward down the road... hummm...

I MIGHT even consider letting a Barding take spear at 2 instead of (swords) because spear is listed in one or both of the Barding packages, and because spear is a generic weapon... I'd actually hesitate more if it the player wanted to trade up to a fancier more elaborate weapon, like an elf asking to start the game with sword 2 instead of 1 in place of bow or spear at 2.

There are some great ideas here, & in particular, Rocmistro sums it up for me. I can certainly understand why you're tempted to let your player tweak his hero a bit, however, some of the other players may want additional consideration. It's a slippery slope

The world believability issue is also very important, perhaps with Middle-earth more than other settings. You may be able to replace their secondary weapons, per some of the suggestions already made on here, but be careful about their primary weapons. Some of these cultures lose their flavor if they wield weapons that don't fit.

Just trying to help

Bigsteve, I do agree that Longsword is closer to the sword family and thus more feasible than Mattock is to the elf array of weapons.

That being said, I still wouldn't allow it, but it's your game. I'm just trying to give you the reasons I wouldn't allow it. It's just a different perspective of looking at things; one person starts with "why?" and the other with "why not?"

As an anecdote, I had a player who wanted to be a "dagger fighter" guy, and he wanted to swap out his weapon skills in sword or whatever for a second rank in dagger. I told him "no" and he was stunned as to why and I gave him the same reasons I essentially gave here. I told him if we were playing D&D, I probably wouldn't have a problem, but being somewhere along the lines of a tolkien purist, I wouldn't allow it, even though he wanted to specialize in an overall inferior weapon (dagger) to a basic sword.

Let me just add to other comments and say that's a great explanation of why not to allow it and something I completely agree with. Really well explained, Rocmistro.

Thanks chaps for the intelligent feedback.

I think you're right, Rocmistro, that the game was deliberately designed that way -- as indicated by various statements on pp. 30, 31 and 32. But I also think it is deliberately quite simplistic -- perhaps for the benefit of new players. It is good 'social engineering'(?) to offer the simple packages that it does, in the knowledge that the typical Fellowship will include companions of a diverse range of cultures, and therefore have an interesting diversity, coverage of the requisite skills, etc.
But the PCs in TOR are not intended to be standard members of the cultures they come from (in the way that, say, old Runequest used to dictate the (paltry) range and level of skill of a starting PC straight off the farm). Having the large majority of their Common Skills already dictated to them, and a choice of only two Weapon Skills packages, is IMHO overly prescriptive. It's fine for new players or for getting gaming quickly, but not so carefully thought out that we should read backward from that to generalise about the whole of their respective cultures.

My game inherited a Company of mostly dwarves, and the lack of diversity amongst dwarves does make itself felt. It would have been worse if I hadn't applied some house rulings of my own for continuity with the previous game system in which they were originally created and played before being 'ported' into TOR.

It's true that players should not be allowed to start from a blank slate and customize everything, and if a degree of customization is allowed, the Loremaster should ensure to avoid a character of one culture crashing in on the intended Company niche of another.

But I would personally be happy to allow a responsible player to reduce the influence of his cultural template and have a few more points for the player themself to allocate as Previous Experience. I guess I think the starting baseline of normalcy is strong enough that it can stand a bit of chipping away without losing the authentic Wilderland feel of the game.

That chappie with the two scimitars, though... He's still right out!

Cheers,
--Os.

For what it's worth, I'm with Osric on this one.

I remember being surprised of being "forced" to make a starting Elf character either specialized with the bow, or not proficient with the bow at all...

I don't disagree one bit. The game already allows for such a thing: with your 10 building skill points at character creation.

If you have a dwarf who may not fit the cookie cut axe-wielder, and instead wields a Longsword of great skill rivaling that of his dwarven kin with axes, chances are he didn't learn that via the usual dwarven hall teachings that the others were probably taught in. Thus he probably wound up having to spend a great deal of time learning a fish out of water kinda means to wield that and had a harder learning curve due to a lack of teaching resources. Doesn't mean it's impossible. But the added time and energy spent learning the atypical fighting method, prevented him from spending as much time toiling in the crafting halls, or learning to do any number of other serviceable skill.

(thus the 2 points you spend to get to Longsword 1 or 6 points to have longswords 2, puts you a little behind the common skill curve of many other dwarves but is the price one pays for going against the grain).


So while I agree with you that the PC Heroes are not always meant to fit the same mold every time, I disagree in the way that you're presenting it be resolved. I feel the game already has ample means of allowing for this and more fairly adjudicated.

Agreed, but that's what the 10 Prior Experience points are for :-)

In truth, I'm open to expanding things out, but I think that the LM should have a total package for all cultures.

Depending on how much work you want to put in, any of the following could work:

1. A third weapon package option for each culture, which includes 2 single weapons at 2, and no dagger at 1, and no cultural skill or favored skill.

2. An additional optional weapon package for each background for each culture. (That would be some work).

3. An additional 2-5 prior experience for each character.

4. An extra +1 rank in a favored skill from your calling's favored skill choices.

Not that I would do any of these, mind you, I'm just thinking that if I did allow it, I would want it to be LM driven, not player driven.

Rocmistro, regarding your idea to have a weapon package for each background being difficult, it isn't really
I did it when I was working on my Men of Dol Amroth culture, which I still haven't finished (mostly due to work and/or laziness), and I found it quite easy, since I could pick weapons that seemed to link most with the backgrounds. It also created a nice diversity. Though it could end up allowing too many options in practice I don't know yet :/