Hey everyone!

I've been reading a lot of TOR these last days and am REALLY intrigued to play this game soon.
I will probably be the loremaster but until I really understood the rules, I am hesitant to get started.

Well anyways, I was reading the rules for Virtues & Rewards and REALLY liked the Virtues but was quite disappointed when reading the Rewards. Items as "character development" sounded a bit lame/boring to me and I came up with the following idea (inspired by one threat here about Standing in other cultures/races).

Bottomline: both Valor and Wisdom provide the character with special abilities equal to the original Virtues, while Standing provides special equipment equal to Rewards:

1) VALOR includes special abilities (called Virtues - I know this might be confusing, but the word just fits so nicely...) revolving around combat, courage, leadership, etc.

2) WISDOM includes special abilities (called Masteries or Insights, or something like that) revolving around special skills, mystic abilities, etc.

3) STANDING can be gained for EACH culture seperately.
- Increasing Standing for one culture includes better equipment as listed under REWARDS.
- Increasing the Standing for a foreign culture costs additional Treasure (+50%-100%)


Of course whe would need to first seperate the existing Virtues into Valor and Wisdom Virtues and then add some more Virtues/Masteries/Insights but I guess it's not that difficult to do.

What do you think?

Or maybe even simpler:

BOTH Valor & Wisdom provide Virtues, while Standing provides Rewards.

I was a little puzzled at the beginning too on this system and had some initial reservations, however I think the rules as is regarding wisdom and valor, rewards and virtues, masteries and qualities etc.. work fairly well. I don't see the need to change the way the game works. Bear in mind that all three effect the way the character is viewed by NPCs.

By biggest reservations came to valor = items too.

Look at increased valor in this way: as the character faces more and more dangers and defeats more and more foes his courage increases as do his renown as a man of valor. As his valor increases the chiefs of his people may give him gifts either as rewards for service or in recognition of his accomplishments and based on the idea that he will put these gifted items to good use against their enemies. Add onto this that some of the items may be found incidentally as loot from defeated enemies, in treasure hordes, or in the most unlikely places. That is even if the player's character is on bad terms with his chief, has been cast out, or if he is far away from his people during the fellowship phase, he may still acquire a cultural reward.

Also when a player adds qualities onto a special item he or she already possess I take it to mean that the character has grown better at using this item. For example: A sword using character chooses the "keen" quality and adds to it to the fine sword they already posses when they increase their valor. In this case the character who has been using the fine sword for some time realizes that the point of the weapon is extremely sharp and the character learns through fighting experience how to thrust better instead of always chopping, due to the new attack options the character will strike piercing blows more often. In this case it's not the weapon quality that has changed but the character's ability to use the weapon that has improved.

Furthermore if a woodsman character takes the bearded axe reward and lends his axe to a character that has not earned that reward the axe operates as a normal long hafted axe. So on some level the reward isn't just an item but a mixture of the item and skill.

Also if a character has a reward item and it is lost in an avalanche or cave in, or boiling lava or whatever, in my game we allowed the player to get a new similar item at the next fellowship phase.

It's all fair and square what you say, but it still seems to me that this (the original rules) mixes both Standing and Valor.
Just reread the paragraphs about Standing, Valor, and Rewards.

In addition, I like the idea of characters having different Standings in different cultures. Thus a highly respected character might receive a cultural reward usually reserved for a different culture.

The weapon qualities (the generic enhancement rewards) could easily translate into special skills, applicable to a specific type of item.
I acutally like the idea and they might make good new Valor-Virtues.

well... what ever works for you and your players!

:-)

For my game I did make some house rule alterations to the RAW as I felt Valour increases were not as attractive as Wisdom ones - ie, only initially relating to items. So I didn't reorganise everything I simply moved the following across to the Valour increase options (from Wisdom) due to their combat related nature:

* Dour Handed
* Fell Handed
* Thwarting (not in the RAW but increases a character's Parry by 1)
* Expertise (in relation to just combat skills)

... For me, that made Valour increases more attractive for my gaming group (which was the primary driver for my changes) but this issue has been discussed before with regards to Wisdom, Valour, and Standing so I'm not surprised it's being discussed again. Personally, I also like the idea of certain item rewards being tied to a characters' cultural Standing rather than to Valour and Wisdom and also having more of a focus to in-game achievements/milestones but that's my own personal taste.

I've been thinking about Valour vs Standing for a bit as well. You are right in saying that both Valour and Wisdom effectively increase your renown and reputation, but the rules also say "no, Standing is the measure of one's reputation". At least masteries and cultural virtues are somewhat personal self-improvements, but Rewards are physical objects given to you as, well, rewards for you great deeds. That's renown and reputation in my book.

This sometimes lead to weird situations as a unrespectable Hobbit known for meddling with the affairs of Elves and Wizards comes home, is despised by the population (Standing of 0) but is given a priceless sword...

In this matter, I'm torn between houseruling and "make it fit" within the rules. Perhaps the mayor gave this unrespectable Hobbit a king's sword because for him, that's a worthless mattom and, well, that should rid the Shire of this adventurous Hobbit!

Also, you could see Valour and Wisdom as renown among the leaders and the wise, while Standing really gets you closer to the population. The mayor might understand that without this adventurous hobbit, the wolves would have crossed the river this winter, but the population only cares about this hobbit singing songs of afar and paying rounds of beer at the Green Dragon for a week straight. For the moment, that's what I'm going for.

...on the other hand, I kind of want to "force" players to spend Rewards on found treasures, and I do have ideas for new Cultural Virtues and Rewards (and no doubt other supplements of fan-made material will add to the list of existing ones). I might consider allowing player to purchase masteries (training) and qualities (masterwork items) with Standing. Mechanically, that's a potential of 18 "abilities" instead of 12 before retirement. I'd have to ponder on all of this...

I now really like the idea that BOTH Valour and Wisdom buy Virtues,
and Renown/Standing might give you special equipment.

Since Renown/Standing CAN decrease, the items gained might also no longer be "plot safe".

Okay, probably this isn't interesting anyone, but I hope some of you might still be willing to give constructive critics:

My plan for now, would be to:

a) Give Virtues (instead of Rewards) for increasing Valour

b) Let players use Treasure to buy qualities for their equipment (1 Treasure for the first quality, 2 Treasures for 2nd quality, and 3 Treasures for the 3rd quality)

c) maybe add some additional Virtue-Masteries


So my questions:

1) Do you think the Treasure costs are okay or too low?

2) What do you think of the following possible Masteries (probably most too powerful):
- Add a new Specialty
- Add a new Distinctive Feature
- Pick a favoured skill, roll feat die twice when using it
- Pick a favoured skill, roll one additional success die, drop the lowest
- When using a favoured weapon, use favoured wits for parry
- When using a favoured weapon, use favoured body for damage
- Add your Valour/Wisdom to ... something...

Okay you're asking for constructive criticisms, I have a few, please do not take these to mean I don't think you have some good ideas, but I'm gonna hit you with a bunch of it, so brace yourself :-)

you ask if 1 treasure for the 1st equipment upgrade, 2 for 2nd etc... is too cheap?

The way I plan to award treasure; yes it is far too cheap.

If you plan to award very little treasure: It could be okay, but you might have to reassess the treasure awarding guidelines int he book.

Another thought: the book as written says it costs 12 treasure for the first point of standing. Are you using this? If so I would not make weapon upgrades 12 times cheaper than raising standing. Players will likely raise the qualities of all their weapons all the way up to 6 before they buy their first standing.... even once they have 5 qualities on armor or weapon it would be half the cost to get another one as it would be to raise standing to 1, which may be viewed as an insignificant increase considering the relative cost.

I also agree that many of your proposed masteries are in fact "too good" or else somewhat overshadow the existing birthrights, rewards and virtues.

For example: woodsmen get a birthright that they can use their favored wits as their parry rating in the woods. If a character could use their favored parry rating whenever they used a long hafted axe AND they were in the woods, would it make the birthright pointless? let's face it, if a character chooses a favored weapon and takes a mastery to have favored parry rating in the same weapon they will probably use that weapon whenever they can. Personally i think getting to use my favored wits whenever i use my favored weapon is a lot better than getting to use my favored whenever I'm in a certain environment.

Also some rewards give the ability to re roll the feat die os a certain common skill, but they are supposed to be special rewards only available to certain cultures, if you make any skill available to any culture it kinda undermines the importance of these rewards.

That one is too strong

Allow 1 Reward or Quality with 1 Standing. IIRC, 1 standing = 12 treasure points.