OK, I really like what I've read of the game. Looking forward to running it.

I have a few questions if anyone could please help.

1. For prolonged tests, exactly how many attempts do they get once you set how many successes they need? Say I have a prolonged test that requires three successes. Do they get three attempts? So if they fail the first, get a great success on the second (counts as 2 successes), and get a regular success on the third they pass? Or do they fail the first time they roll a failure?

2. How does cooperating on prolonged tasks work? I think the implication is cooperating helps your chances, but if you still need three successes in three chances are you just changing who rolls or is there some mechanic to grant an advantage?

3. Can you do cooperation on regular (not prolonged) tests? "I'm going to look for the Orc trail." "Great idea, I'm going to help!" Do both players roll separately? That's just a matter to time then really if a lot of players get in on something.

4. Can a player invoke a trait on a Test when he doesn't know what he's being tested for? For example, I want to give an awareness test to notice an Orc scout spying on the party. But I don't want to let them know exactly what I'm testing for in case they fail. Should I allow them to use the Orc lore trait to invoke a success if they want? That tips off the test right there if they choose to roll and not invoke the trait.

5. How are you handling great and extraordinary successes? For example, say I test to see that Orc tracking the party. I was thinking of doing something like this:

Success (with roll or trait invocation): You see signs an Orc has been nearby
Great success: You see signs you are being tracked by an Orc of a certain region
Extraordinary success: You can try to capture the Orc tracking you

What I'm asking is are degrees of success only a matter of flavor and advancement points or can they change the tide in dramatic and mechanical ways? I'm asking this outside of where the rules give obvious mechanics for degrees of success (such as combat).

If you make great and extraordinary successes valuable it might help limit trait invocation to auto-pass, but I'm getting the feeling I might be taking this farther than the designer wants.

6. Trait invocation: I like this a lot. It's a powerful mechanic and I like how it appears to bring role play and roll play together. I'm interested in the economy of this. What are the costs from the player's mind in invoking a trait to auto-pass a roll? They forgo the opportunity for a higher success (see #5 above, maybe this does not matter?) and they forgo the opportunity to invoke it for an advancement point (but that lessens once they have an AP in that skill group). Once they invoke a trait, is that automatic for that same situation every time going forward?

7. Eye of Sauron die roll: I know there are a few explicit rules (fumble on called shot, bout or madness if weary, hazard if travelling), but are there general guidelines for how to handle this when it comes up in a general test or task? It's always a fail (edit: not the case), but should the loremaster go beyond that to make more dire consequences than a normal failure? I couldn't find that in the rulebook.

I know there's a lot here. Sorry for the huge post. I'm just looking for ideas from other players. Feel free to chime in even if you only have an opinion on one of these. Thanks! It's a really great board.

1) No idea, not a loremaster, and as such I am purposefully not reading the Loremaster's book. I have tendency to metagame (even unconsciously; its really annoying and I try not to), so the less I know about things like monster stats, the better I'll behave.

2) Again, don't know.

3) Still don't know much about prolonged tests. At this point I'm comfortable saying that either you missed/misunderstood something really big and obvious (like a whole section of the book), or the prolonged/group test rules need some clarification. I do know that our GM has been passively discouraging us from using them, so he's likely confused as well.

4) Not really, no, but he can read off his (very short) list of traits and tell you what he's trying to invoke one to do (auto-success or advancement point). After the rolls happen it probably doesn't matter if he finds out which trait worked.

5) From what I've seen, it's mostly case-by-case, but the general theme is "the actual numeric result is not important beyond success/failure; what actually determines the degree of awesome is the number of tengwars(sp)".

6) invoking to auto-pass means giving up the chance of an extraordinary success (auto-AP), and giving up the chance to invoke on even a simple success for that first AP. Also, it seems to me that auto-success isn't an option for most rolls; from what I've seen on the forums it's only really allowed when failure (meaning Eye of Sauron) doesn't do anything bad (like trigger a hazard).

Personally, I don't think our group has EVER used the auto-success; then again, the GM is being generous with AP, and getting those means rolling, so thats what we always do, which works for him because he gets more Eyes to inflict on us, and he likes that. So.

Also, I believe that a player can choose whether or invoke or roll for each individual roll.

7) I think you need to re-read the Eye of Sauron rule; it's NEVER an auto-fail. It's a ZERO, sure, and it usually triggers bad stuff (hazard, enemy gets called shot on you next turn, etc), but it's not an auto-fail. Likewise, a Gandalf is not an auto-fail for the baddies, just a zero.

1. I think the idea with prolonged tests is generally that any one failure is a fail for the test. But this could vary dependent on LM ruling.

2. The more tests involved lowers the TN. This, along with the better spread of skills, models the benefits of cooperation.

3. No. Generally, any test where two or more people cooperate on is a prolonged test or can be modelled that way.

4. Yes. Though the same rules regarding failure being non-dramatic would still apply, which would generally mean that in play the answer is no.

5. If I can't think of anything cool, I just roll with a success and move on. If I can think of extra benefits I award them accordingly.

6. You seem to have the right of it. I would never set down hard rules for Trait invocation though. The guiding principle of failure being non-dramatic should be applied each time, so precedent would not apply.

7. No. As with greater degrees of success, if I can't think of anything cool, I just roll with the dice result and move on. If I can think of extra complications I impose them accordingly.

Thanks a lot for your replies. That helps clear a lot up for me.

Yes he can. with such traits as Cautious, Suspicious and Wary.

I read through prolonged tests and cooperation again last night and it still seems a little vague.

For example, it gives as an example breaking down a door. From my bad memeory I think it says it takes three successes and the maximum that can cooperate is 3. So why have three roll over having the most capable make three attempts? I guess it could be saying that if one tries it is one roll only at TN and if three try it's three rolls at TN-2? I'm not even sure that increases the probability. But even then it's a stretch from what is written.

It's also still unclear to me how many attempts you get. It could be first failure is a failure or you get the same number as attempts as successes required since great and extraordinary success count as multiple successes.

To answer your first question, you can't normally retry tests, so having the most capable try three times is not an option.

As for the math, I imagine that sometimes it would be better to have a PC make a single test rather than cooperate in a prolonged test. The rules even suggest this. Prolonged tests are generally most useful in overcoming very difficult challenges. Otherwise, the PCs would try and do everything as a prolonged test.

Given the general rule that there are no retries and the overall design of prolonged tests, I think that the idea is that each cooperators gets 1 test and everyone must succeed first time for the prolonged test to be succeed. As with all things in TOR GM can modify this if it doesn't seem appropriate but be aware that movement from that base can be exploited by players and you will promote them to slow down the game and and making as many tests as possible prolonged tests.