When thinking about unconsciousness in TOR, I wonder how it can be used in ways other than combat and as a maturing device for a developing hero.

Bilbo is knocked unconscious twice that I can remember in the Hobbit: once when he was dropped by Dori in the Goblin caves and then when he was hit with a rock in the head and missed the entire Battle of Five Armies. The former certainly led to a new level in Bilbo's progress as an unlikely hero.

Page 104 of the Adventurer's Book begins the section Losing Endurance by saying, "During play, player-heroes lose Endurance points to blows suffered in combat, as the consequence of strenuous efforts, and to other sources of physical harm." Blows suffered in combat is the most common way players will lose Endurance points because the combat mechanics already call for this. But, it will be through the storytelling efforts of the Loremaster that the other two suggestions will ever come to pass. There are no specific suggestions given in the rulebooks that I can recall for how players lose Endurance points through strenuous efforts or other physical harm.

Perhaps, instead of automatically assuming a hero is dead meat when he is knocked unconscious, the Loremaster can consider having him wake up alone or in a different place or to face a new dilemma or level of challenge. As William H. Green says in his book The Hobbit: A Journey into Maturity, unconsciousness is death's twin, but intervals of unconsciousness can also be steps in the climb to maturation.

I'd say a character could be temporarily unconscious without Endurance dropping to zero, just as he could be temporarily weary without Fatigue in excess of Endurance or temporarily miserable without Shadow in excess of Hope. Could even extend it to include being temporarily hopeless. As with all temporary states, it lasts until the source of the condition is no longer present. Who's to say that plot cannot be such a source?

There are so many thoughts running through my head about this. The first one that I want to share is that perhaps a hero can fall unconscious when his Fatigue is raised high enough to equal or exceed his Endurance score.

Yeah - like fainting from exhaustion. Sure. Of course that could also happen from hypoxia, hypoglemia, hypotension......they're all no bueno!

You made me laugh SirKicley!

Thinking even more about this, I should have said starting Endurance score. Weariness is the result of the Fatigue score equaling the Endurance score.

What if a hero were to fall unconscious when his Fatigue score was equal to his starting Endurance score? Right now, this would only happen during a journey (as Fatigue gains only happen there; however, Fatigue gains could happen during long battles if Athletics tests were required after so many minutes of fighting!). During a journey, he would be forced to stop and rest (adding a day to the journey) before continuing on (and he wouldn't be able to fulfill his role). Or, someone would have to carry him and have trouble fulfilling their own role. If they weren't in a safe place, the hero's prolonged rest would not allow him to lower his Fatigue either, but he would wake up the next day.

After that point, any new Fatigue gains would cause him to collapse again.

Tough, I know. But, it makes sense that becoming Weary would also lead to Unconsciousness somehow (other than through combat). Right now, the mechanics of the game do not express this. You become Weary when your Endurance is equal to or lower than Fatigue, but you are not Unconscious until your Endurance reaches zero.

This post has been edited by JamesRBrown on Jul 4 2012, 08:37 PM

But do we officially keep track of the Starting Endurance? I use Azrapse's online CS (it's just so much easier) so I cannot recall if this is kept on the official CS.

The only other thing that comes to mind is it might make sense to broaden the discussion to include illness and poison as these are all going to be similar issues/mechanics. And while I mention that, can we do all of that by re-using an existing game mechanic? (Per the sudden revelation that we like to recycle game mechanics from the Revised Journey Rules topic.)

Starting Endurance is recorded on both the official character sheet as well as azrapse's online character sheet. It is a must for knowing how much Endurance a hero can recover.

Fatigue tests already exist for journeys by using the Travel skill. So, why not expand the use of Fatigue tests for battles by using the Athletics skill? There is a formula for calculating how many Fatigue tests must be made according to the length of a journey and the current season. In the same way, a formula can be determined for how many Fatigue tests need to made over the course of a battle.

Ok, re-reading your posts I see I got focused on fainting as opposed to your point about using Athletics in combat.

So, you're suggesting... every X rounds the characters roll an Athletics Test to determine if they have over-exerted themselves and faint? Or something equivalent to that? On the surface this appears to be a viable mechanism, but it would have combatants fainting in the middle of combat - allowing coup de gras attacks to become common.

Further it places a strain on the recovery mechanism because it would take far too long to recover enough Fatigue to be able to rejoin the fray. Most people realize when they are pushing themselves that they need to take a break or allow themselves time to recover - prior to fainting. This has not been mentioned yet.

Instead how would an alternate method work with your concept? Let's say that particularly strenuous activity performed for a period of time causes a -0.1 decrease in Fatigue per round. After 10 consecutive depleting rounds, the character suffers the loss of a full point of Fatigue - which will have to be recovered normally. However, if the character stops the activity before a full Fatigue point accrues, they can recover partial points by relaxing (no strenuous activity, little movement, breathing heavily, allowing the body to cool down, or optionally, ingestion of water or a snack,) for five minutes. (Relaxing doesn't work after 20 or more rounds.)

Extending the idea further you get:

All of the above is just conjecture on my part, a logical extension of the original concept if you will.

PS: I've got to stop trying to reply when I'm mentally exhausted - I writing particularly foolish messages, like that last one. Sorry about that.

I would not attempt to even worry about Fatigue tests during normal combat. My suggestion is strictly for extended periods of combat so that the interval for triggering an Athletics test would be beyond X amount of rounds. I would use 30 minute intervals for each test. If a hero fails the Fatigue test (Athletics), he gains 1 point of Fatigue. Recovery for Fatigue would remain as it is already written.

Hero's would only fall Unconscious during battle if their Fatigue score would rise to equal their starting Endurance score. He would awaken after an amount of time that needs to be decided and wouldn't fall Unconscious again until he failed another Athletics test.

Yes indeed. The plot (as narrated by the Loremaster) can very well be a source of Unconsciousness. More on this later...

Ok, but wouldn't that be more of a wargame mechanism? By this I mean most in-game combat is not going to take nearly that long to resolve unless you're dealing with a major battle/war. It's a difference of scale.

What you are saying is true, which is why falling Unconscious in combat would only be reserved for longer battles. The main application for my proposal would be journeys, which is measured in intervals of days.

Last night, I re-read through this post and its excellent dialogue. I thought I offer up another example from Tolkien's own writings. In The LotR, we find another great example similar to Bilbo's "knock" at the Battle. In the chapter titled "The Palantir," Pippin falls unconscious from the psychological and spiritual strain after gazing into and being entrapped by Sauron's will through the Palantir. Like Bilbo, Pippin enters a whole new level of maturity as a consequence of this event; in effect, it is a crux moment in Pippin's personal narrative. This might fall more into the realm of "plot-device" than rule-mechanic; but, it provides another interesting example:

An Adversary's Strike Fear special ability, when a player-hero fails a Fear test and rolls an Eye as well...? The result could be a temporary Unconscious state with the mechanic finding its inspiration in the above example. (A Thing of Fear special ability might as well work the same way based on the same example....)

Regards,
E

PS, I like the idea of an Athletics test during a prolonged battle. We read often in The LotR how characters find themselves taking a break and meeting amidst the field of battle and, after catching their breath, moving off again into the fray.

PSS. While I'm pondering the stories, how about a messenger who pushes him- or herself to the point of exhaustion to delver a message. Reaches the hard sought destination, delivers the message and collapses? That might be another interesting use of Unconscious in a different and innovative way from the mechanic as stated in the rules. As a maturing device, the expenditure of oneself (self-sacrifice) should always lead to a new moment in a character's development. The Hobbit and The LotR are rife with examples of this dynamic.