So a careful reading and re-reading of Heroic Development has left me confused on increasing Valour and/or Wisdom.

Basically, thanks to the ambiguous use of contractions, antecedents and subject-clause agreement, I have the following question:

Can a player increase both Wisdom and Valour in the same Heroic Development (Fellowship Phase) if he has enough XP?

Reading this:

"Heroes cannot buy more than one rank in either Wisdom
or Valour during the same Fellowship phase. When
a player-hero advances in either Wisdom or Valour,
care should be taken to adjust the scores of all related
abilities and features."

suggest it can be taken one of two ways:

1. The player chooses either Wisdom OR Valour and can then only advance by a maximum of 1 rank in that chosen attribute.
2 The player can advance in both Wisdom and Valour, but not by more than 1 point each.

It does not seem obvious one way or the other what the intended ruling should be, and I don't see anything terribly game-breaking about being able to level up each of them if a player has enough XP.

Thoughts? Do we have an official Francesco ruling on this?

I would say from a strict reading of things that a character who has enough XP could increase in both. Agree that it doesn't seem terribly game breaking, either.

To me it's fairly obvious from reading the rules that only one of the traits can be increased during a fellowship phase. That's how I've been adjudicating it anyway but I think it's correct as per the RAW. I think it makes more of a narrative sense that way as well.

No, the character cannot improve both regardless of available XP, since option #1 is the proper interpretation of the quoted passage.

The second quoted sentence is simply meant to remind players that any change in their stats needs to be accounted for in all applicable places. Valour and Rewards tend to have multiple impacts to the character sheet.

So the player needs to fill out the Valour/Rewards column and add a new skill at rank 1. Or the columns and alter their Armour value or Weapon Damage. For enchanted items, a note would be added that the Valour or Reward applies to the item in question (my house rule) as otherwise people can forget where their XP spend went to.

Garn, can you explain your last point about adding skills/altering armour and damage please? Is all of that your house rule, or just the enchanted weapon bit?

This part was just a reference to how some Valour/Rewards (the columns comment above) can affect a character's armor or weaponry.

Ah, ok. What about the rank one skills bit? :S

While I am inclined to agree with you, I don't think it's obvious that this is how it's intended, and that's the part I'm trying to examine (and get you all to examine with me).

"Heroes cannot buy more than one rank in either Wisdom
or Valour during the same Fellowship phase."

As I parse the sentence structure, I read it as:

((A character cannot buy more than one rank in Wisdom) AND (they cannot buy more than one rank in Valour)) during the same fellowship phase.

But, this says nothing about whether they can do both, just as it says nothing, for example, about whether or not they can use Advancement Points to increase the Stealth skill during the Fellowship Phase.

And that has a different meaning and would require a different sentence structure than:

"During the Fellowship Phase each hero must choose between Wisdom or Valour to increase; whatever his choice, he can raise it by a maximum of 1 Rank."

I'm really not trying to get overly legalese here, and I have no opinion or hope for it to be worded one way or the other; I just want to know if there is an official clarification on this and if so, what is it?

I ask because this begs another question: Assuming that players must pick one or the other, and can only advance by 1 point, what is to stop them from entering a 2nd fellowship phase immediately after the first one if they want to? It just seems like a draconian rule that serves no real purpose; the PC's earned the XP and if they want to they should be able to spend them on what they can afford. (That being said, I realize and agree that it is bad form for a player to say...you know what, let's just hang around Rhosgobel and get wiser/more courageous, etc.)

Page 170 Adventurer's Book:

Heroes may spend their Experience Points to gain a new rank in either Wisdom or Valour.

... That seems pretty clear to me that it's either one or the other. More so when you read about those traits throughout the rules and how narratively significant they are to develop in such an incremental way.

Good call, Rich. I should have looked at the rules before answering (I'd assumed they were quoted in the OP). Looking at it now, it quite clearly says "either".

Thanks Rich...yeah I don't know how I missed that. That pretty much was the clarification I needed.

No problem.

I do recommend reading both books cover to cover twice straight after each other. There are lots of nuggets of information buried throughout which scan reading will not uncover. Not saying you haven't read them adequately, mind, just wanted to point this out as what I did and I've been fine - I actually can't remember ever asking for a rules clarification so it must have worked!