First a bit of background: An issue came up regarding the Barding's Woeful Foresight virtue. The player for said Barding was under the impression that if Woeful Foresight was not used during an adventure then the character would receive an extra point of Experience.

This seemed broken to me, as in this system a fellowship only gets a couple Experience Points each adventure. I rechecked the rules to confirm that in fact the Barding would only get the Experience point if the player tried using Woeful Foresight and the Lore-Master (for whatever reason) chose not to grant the Barding a vision of the Doom awaiting the Fellowship.

This seemed reasonable as it left control over the granting of the bonus point of experience in the hands of the Lore-Master, thus limiting the imbalance this might cause.

End of preamble.

Now the Lake-town sourcebook has come out and the Lake-Men all have the Cultural Blessing: Tenacious which allows them to learn from their mistakes. This translates directly into Experience points if the Lake-man spends a Hope whenever they are wounded or failed Fear & corruption checks, or any a roll with serious consequences.

There is no indication in the rules that this is limited to once per adventure, and even once per adventure this would give the Lake-man a considerable advantage over other cultures.

Am I missing something in the rules or misinterpreting the ability?
Also shouldn't a failed skill roll of the non-Fear/Corruption/Combat variety translate into Advancement Points rather than Experience Points?



TL;DR Tenacious seems like it might be broken.

"Tenacious seems like it might be broken."

It is actually kind of funny, one of the last times my group was together we had a brief discussion about why RPGs don't give XPs for failed rolls rather then XPs for successful rolls, as you learn more from your mistakes.

"...or any a roll with serious consequences."

I think this is where your answer lies, how many rolls of this level are in most games? Not many, at least not in the games I have played in. Also, who defines what a "serious consequence" is? The LM I would think.

I quite agree, I always found it odd that computer and table top games almost exclusively reward success and not failures with experience, when life tends to indicate the opposite.

In any case, I certainly approve of the principle behind Tenacious. It might simply be that I found the description a bit awkwardly worded.

I recently started a second group on the system and told the player of the Barding in this group that that the character could be remade as a Man of the Lake. So, we'll see how it goes.

That being said, any thoughts on the idea of Common Skill serious failures awarding Advancement points instead of Experience points?

I was under the impression that it was already a possibility for all cultures, even though I don't have the rules on hand to check. I certainly gave a few advancement points for failed rolls before.

I was asking myself the very same thing. This rule could be easyly abused.

I love Mouse Guard because you grow up your skills when you pass and fail tests. The One Ring doesn't do the same RaW, but Loremaster can have some criteria, I think, when the failure is dramatic and nutritious to the story.

From Loremaster's Book (pg.30):

Although it isn't in the following section on when to award advancement points, it is definitely implied in the section preamble.

I guess that's what the Mountain Troll is for. If player's start abusing the rules, squat erm with a Mountain Troll .

Being serious though, as other's have said, the Lore Master is in charge of both advancement and exp points. If your player's get whiny because they think your being shrifty with rewards, hit erm with a Mountain Troll.

I did. They defeated it.

2 Mountain Trolls then

Seriously they defeated a Mountain Troll? Did they get a decent ambush on it? Did anyone die? Did you pull your punches? Maybe start a different thread to explain. I want details.

I too would like a little info about the encounter with the Mountain Troll.
How many adventurers, and how experienced were they? What kind of weapons were they using? Any clever tactics on their part? Was the Troll accompanied by some lesser enemy like orcs?

6 experienced heroes vs. Mountain Troll on his own. Weapons varied: bows, sword, long sword, mattock. Some use of called shots, especially by the archer. Lucky dice rolling and a devastating opening volley. The mattock got the required wound. I didn't make best use of the hate points - should have used the toughness (to reduce rate of endurance loss) and strength a bit more. It only got in 1 blow - which reduced the person it hit immediately to weary (they used knockback to reduce end loss or it would have been immediate unconscious).

I'll see if I can tidy the chat log for public consumption - or send me a PM with email and I'll send it on to you.

The Woodsman 'Hound' Virtue is very useful when Troll hunting. The hound can take up one of the close combat positions and free up the character to be in Rearward Stance.

Begs the question though, three Woodsmen go Troll Hunting with their hounds. Can all three close combat spaces be filled by hounds while the Woodmen feather the beast with arrows and cast spears at it?

Arrows don't do much in the way of wounding the creature. All the called shots by the archer were in vain. It took the Dwarf's Mattock (TN20) to cause a wound. An axe would also probably work.

Did any of your players used Prepared Shots?

With the skill level involved (4), the archer generally uses Called Shot rather than Prepared Shot.

I think the best use of the Hound against the Mountain Troll is for "Harass Enemy": most ranged weapon fare badly against the beast's armour

Well, that's my opinion as "armchair troll-hunter"

Aye, but if you use Francesco's recent addition and reduce it's endurance to zero, it becomes Weary and a whole lot easier to wound.

I, personnaly, am not a big fan of this optionnal rule.
I prefer the use of Awe and intimidation to reduce the enemy Hate point and by the same fact reduce is use of special abilities AND possibly to making the opponent weary more rapidly.

But, if you have the Hound trained to harass enemies while you are fighting them, then they are already considered weary.

I don't have the rules in front of me, but I think the spirit of the rules is that the hound assists the other PCs in screening those that have taken up a rearward stance, not become the screen by themselves.

I would think that if a party consisted of multiple Woodsmen, each would have trained their hound in diffrent skills (ie 1 for hunting, one for covering, and one for harassing the enemies in battle.) Unless you are talking about a group that have been adventuring for a long while and they have spent the necessary XPs to have their dogs trained in all 3 which is an expensive proposition.

Indeed Beren, it would be highly unlikely that a group of PC Woodmen would all have hounds with the same abilities, but consider what if a group had?

I am all for playing in the spirit of the game and,frankly, I wouldn't have a problem with this scenario. It seems perfectly reasonable that a group of Woodmen might use a pack of hounds to confuse their prey whilst they deal with it from a safe distance.

Also, the Harass Enemy skill means that the hounds and the characters can still be potentialy injured by the Mountain Troll.

Unless there turns out to be more than one of the Trolls, this is probably the tried and tested way of dealing with the critters by Woodman pest control.

I still think your group got lucky Valarian, even with a Mattock the chance to wound the Troll are pretty low.

I can't believe they killed it in one/two rounds (they must have been jammy). Although they did have 6 characters.

Plus the sparse use of Hate pts on your part probably let them off a bit.

Any ho, what was this thread about again?

We where play testing the other day and I let them meet a Hill Troll chief

Now that was a fight. One of the PC´s almost died and it ended with the Troll walking away...The PC´s could not kill it.

The PC´s where brand new no experience at all.

So Hill Trolls are nasty hehe

Very lucky. Very jammy. The dice being rolled produced amazing results and, as you say, I didn't make the best use of the hate points. I should have slowed the rate of endurance loss more for the Troll. As stated, the opening volley was devastating, 2 extraordinary successes from a specialised elf archer.

"...2 extraordinary successes from a specialised elf archer."

Oh, some pin-cushiony goodness.

Bow: 10 silver pieces.
Arrow: 1 silver piece.
The look of surprise on the Trolls face as you hit him right between the eyes: priceless.

Blind Guardian,

I know what you are saying but I can't imagine that shouting at a Troll, threatening it or banging sword on shield is going to work. I know the rules permit it, but the players would need to be pretty ingenious for me to allow it.

As a caveat, if all the players elect to do the same or if it's a successful ambush, I would be more inclined to be lenient. Once the big fella is into combat though and his blood's up, no amount of Paddington Hard Stares is gonna work. IMO of course.

Just imagine the Troll's surprise when it roars at the PCs and they roar back though.

Troll: "Well, that doesn't normally happen."

Yes, I know. But I still prefer that rule over the 0 endurance= "weary".
But trolls(most of them) are stupid so who knows how they'll react...?

Agree with all of you up to a point. That point is when the fight has actually started. After that,"it's clobberin time!'.

Also, I realise it's a personal preference, but the option for Weary makes perfect sense to me. After all, most pc's are Weary long before they reach 0 endurance.

I feel I must apologise for completely derailing this thread by mentioning Mountain Trolls.

Hmmm, yes....back to Lakemen eh?

I must have missed this recent addition. Could you kindly point me to where it is? Thanks.

http://cubicle7.clicdev.com/f/index.php?tr...&showtopic=2774

Note for the mods: we could do with this adding to the "Rules Clarifications" thread.

Using the rules as written, the dogs cannot be attacked: the hound is hit only when the woodsman himself is hit with an eye rune.
So, theoretically a team of dogs is an impassable screen for an enemy without ranged attacks.

In such an unlikely situation, I would probably rule that the hound got the same parry than the woodsman in open stance, and any hit will "wound" the dog
Or simply state that some hero has to fight in melee alongside the dogs...

I wouldn't change the rules at all. As I said, it's quite conceivably a trusted method of dealing with large critters by the Woodmen. As for PC's, well now, that's a different story. I would probably let them pull it off once or twice, just enough to make them cocky, then hit them with the Trolls family(Mate and a couple of Adolescents and a pet warg with Great Leap should do the trick )
If the players are clever enough to utilise this scheme, they shouldn't be penalised. Just find a way to circumvent it occasionally. Besides, they are probably going to be lacking in other areas.

I was considering of this myself. The XP thing doesn't sit well with me either, the more I think about it. XP is the real gauge of how powerful a character is, while AP varies from character to character.

Maybe either:

1. spend Hope on a significant failure to gain an AP

or

2. On any failed Common Skill roll, you can check off an AP for a skill group if there are no checks there already (so you can only check the first box, no Hope needed).

I'm leaning towards #2, myself. Good in a broad, everyone can use it sort of way, but it has some built in limitations that keep it from going overboard.

"Or simply state that some hero has to fight in melee alongside the dogs... "

I think that this fits in with how the spirit of the rules was intended.

I think so too.

I can't remember the exact wording, but the Hound acts as a "free" PC for the purposes of allowing the Woodsman to take Rearward stance. It doesn't say that this changes the rules at all AFAIK. So you still need another PC up front to make 2 covering the Woodsman. It could also be that a Woodsman's hound works with him only due to long training, and can't be used to cover anyone else.