Favoured Attribute scores and Skills: a House Rule

[Michebugio]

A common complaint about TOR rules I've been reading about in the forums is that some player's choices made during character creation seem to have a really low impact on gameplay. Specifically, the Favoured Attribute scores and Skills choices are the steps of the character creation where the real customization takes place, and yet the classic complaint of the TOR neophyte sounds more or less like this: "What, do you really need to spend Hope to sum your Attribute score to the roll? And does Favoured just means that slight bonus, still only when spending Hope? That sucks!".

It doesn't suck, of course. The game is very well balanced on this, and the design choices work very well within the system. But nevertheless some players do feel that some of their choices weren't so relevant, looking at how the system works.

This is most evident looking at how much disregarded are Masteries such as Gifted and Expertise. Even characters who directly benefit from Favoured Attribute scores from Cultural Blessings or Virtues without having to spend Hope (Woodmen, Bardings) will hardly choose them. For some other Cultures (Elves, Beornings) one or both of those Masteries are practically useless. You can have a maximum of 5 Virtues or Masteries, and there are almost always better choices.

I won't go further into the debate, since every gaming table is different and it's not the purpose of this topic. At my table there was a consensus that we needed something to feel the choices made during character creation more, so I came up with this "soft-impact" house rule that I'd like to share, comment and playtest.

Write your Favoured Attribute scores separately from the sum with the basic score. For example, instead of writing Body 5 (8), Heart 6 (7), Wits 3 (5), you write Body 5 (+3), Heart 6 (+1), Wits 3 (+2).

Favoured skills always sum the value in brackets to the final results of rolls. Using the values above, a character who has Convince 2 rolls 2 success dices and adds 2 to the final result (not 2 dices, just 2). If he had Awe 1, he would roll 1D+3 and if he had Travel 3, he would roll 3D+1 (and so on).
Skills that aren't Favoured do not sum anything to their rolls.

When invoking an Attribute spending Hope, then, you simply add the basic Attribute score to the roll, whether the skill was Favoured or not. For example, the character above who rolls Convince 2, rolls 2D+2. If he decides to invoke an Attribute bonus spending Hope, the roll becomes 2D+5 (i.e. he adds the basic Wits to the final result).

Pros: the values you choose for your Favoured Attributes now matter every time you make a Favoured skill roll, and you will feel the impact of your choice much more. Also your Favoured common skill choices are more important, since now it means a +1 to +3 bonus to every roll. The Gifted Mastery is an outright +1 bonus to all Favoured skills that benefit from the same Attribute, while the Expertise Mastery is now a +1 to +3 bonus to the skill you choose. Now that's something I would actually choose as a player.
Also, gameplay balance is unaffected when spending Hope, since the final results will be the same as in the RAW (you just add the +1/+2/+3 difference between basic and favoured score before spending Hope, not after).

Cons: only Favoured skills are affected, and by a small boost... but it's still a boost. If you fear that things will become too simple for your players, as a Loremaster you may want to increase all the TNs by one level (+2) to compensate this. Things will be more difficult when using non-Favoured skills, but this may not be a drawback for the house rule, since it may encourage different specializations among players, or suit well high-level campaigns.

[Mithrandir]

I like that but am curious if it makes the skill too strong I currently use +3, +2, +1 the same way but with a differnt rule because I never liked how autosucess worked and wasnt clearly defined. I wanted choices of Traits like Mirkwood Lore to do more and be more defining so ..

Whenever you are allowed to invoke a Trait with the use of that favoured skill for Automatic Appraisal, (Replaces Auto Success) the Loremaster shall consider TN 14 + Favoured Attribute (the value in brackets ) to automatically succeed. If the TN was not succeeded, the Hero action does not count as a failure in anyway but does count as the use of thier action as they appraise the situation and learn something about its true difficulty.

For example: The same character might be allowed by the Loremaster to autosucceed with a appropriate Trait and a Persuade TN up to 15 (14 + 1). An especially well crafted use of the skill might even award an AP for the autosucess.

[Michebugio]

I like that but am curious if it makes the skill too strong I currently use +3, +2, +1 the same way but with a differnt rule because I never liked how autosucess worked and wasnt clearly defined. I wanted choices of Traits like Mirkwood Lore to do more and be more defining so...

Whenever you are allowed to invoke a Trait with the use of that favoured skill for Automatic Appraisal, (Replaces Auto Success) the Loremaster shall consider TN 14 + Favoured Attribute (the value in brackets ) to automatically succeed. If the TN was not succeeded, the Hero action does not count as a failure in anyway but does count as the use of thier action as they appraise the situation and learn something about its true difficulty.

Yes but in the end you're taking away something from the players (the auto-success, independently from the TN), as they'll probably have to still roll for any task with a TN 18 or more (TN 14+Favoured value in brackets means a maximum TN of 17, not counting Gifted). So to me it seems that with this rule Traits are less defining, not more, since auto-success wouldn't be granted anymore...

And what of normal (non-favoured) skills? Does it mean that auto-success is granted only for tasks with TN 14 (i.e. TN 14+0 since it's not favoured)? If yes, having an appropriate Trait would be much less useful (since you have to roll anyway for TN 16 or more), so again with this rule having a Trait would be way less defining than in the RAW...

[zedturtle]

As I kind of hinted at in the other thread, I think this system works nicely. But I might go back to favoured skills having the same progression as the other skills if I implemented this, otherwise folks might get too specialised.

[Rich H]

I do quite like this house rule from the OP. I think it's interesting and makes things like Expertise and Giftted a significant choice for players and their characters. Would agree with Zed to remove the different spend rates for developing favoured and non-favoured Common Skills.

Just a further question; is this just for Common Skills or Weapon Skills also?

[Michebugio]

As I kind of hinted at in the other thread, I think this system works nicely. But I might go back to favoured skills having the same progression as the other skills if I implemented this, otherwise folks might get too specialised.

I do quite like this house rule from the OP. I think it's interesting and makes things like Expertise and Giftted a significant choice for players and their characters. Would agree with Zed to remove the different spend rates for developing favoured and non-favoured Common Skills.

If you mean that favoured skills should cost the same Advancement points as non-favoured skills when using this rule (as before the revised edition), then we're exactly on the same page, guys

Also I kinda don't like how the reduced AP cost in the revised edition leads players to choose favoured skills with low starting ratings (0 or 1), to "save" AP afterwards. Having a starting favoured skill at rating 3 is twice wasted, since you both don't need a greater boost when spending Hope (you already roll 3 dices), AND you won't improve that very much during the campaign.

With the rule I propose, the benefit is immediate and tangible, something I feel that is missing from the current RAW.

Just a further question; is this just for Common Skills or Weapon Skills also?

This is where I need your help. What do you think about it? Would it be OP? Maybe we can find some means to apply it also to Weapon skills, but with some tweaks.

[Falenthal]

Just a further question; is this just for Common Skills or Weapon Skills also?

This is where I need your help. What do you think about it? Would it be OP? Maybe we can find some means to apply it also to Weapon skills, but with some tweaks.

I don't have a definitive answer, but all cultures begin with the same ranks in weapon skills and they don't have a reduced cost to improve, so that the hindrances that you pointed out for favorite common skills don't apply here, as far as I can see.
In that light, I'd let weapon skills out of the rule. Besides, enemies already have worse weapons. If they also get hitted more often, combats could become very unbalanced.

[Michebugio]

I don't have a definitive answer, but all cultures begin with the same ranks in weapon skills and they don't have a reduced cost to improve, so that the hindrances that you pointed out for favorite common skills don't apply here, as far as I can see.
In that light, I'd let weapon skills out of the rule.

I agree. Besides, players tend to use just one weapon all the time, so the (Weapon Group) skill alternative is already almost a weak choice compared to a Favoured Weapon skill, and this rule would widen the disparity.

For the same reason, the bonus would show up in every battle, since players do not shift weapons often (actually almost never, in my experience), so again the Parry TN should be increased by +2 to compensate for this, enormously increasing the disadvantage for the (Weapon Group) skills.

Also, Weapon skill rolls are more dramatic than Common skill rolls, so it also fits that the whole Favoured Attribute bonus comes in play only when spending Hope.

[Mithrandir]

Yes but in the end you're taking away something from the players (the auto-success, independently from the TN), as they'll probably have to still roll for any task with a TN 18 or more (TN 14+Favoured value in brackets means a maximum TN of 17, not counting Gifted). So to me it seems that with this rule Traits are less defining, not more, since auto-success wouldn't be granted anymore...

And what of normal (non-favoured) skills? Does it mean that auto-success is granted only for tasks with TN 14 (i.e. TN 14+0 since it's not favoured)? If yes, having an appropriate Trait would be much less useful (since you have to roll anyway for TN 16 or more), so again with this rule having a Trait would be way less defining than in the RAW...

I do not agree with a rule design that adds +2 TN to already existing TN for parry or skill checks to balance it, while the improvement to gifted and expertise are much needed there hopefully is a better way to balance how this will effect skill checks and encounters without changing all the TNs.

Anyhow I only mention my HR because it uses the exact same Favoured Attribute Modifiers(+1,+2, +3) and is somewhat a light version of what you are suggesting admittedly too much so, it does little for Gifted or Expertise. Which is what I really like about your HR.

I think you should not add the bonus to weapon skills, as that only makes the problems worse. I am suggesting you do not allow it to add that modifier all the time to favoured skill rolls and instead tie it to the use of Traits or just Specialties. Its that connection that prompted me to share. So dont take my criticism as anything less than constructive because you have great ideas. Hope this HR is helpful.

As for My HR. According to the raw, autosuccess is only granted when the TN is insignificant and without risk, so nothing is being taken away only more benefit is given for traits such as Mirkwood Lore as the Hero can now more accurately access the difficulty as well as auto suceed at more significant tests with risk involved. As for skills that are not favoured they remain capped at TN 14 for granting auto success. You also said auto-success wouldn't be granted anymore... but yes it is in fact still granted imo.

[Glorelendil]

I'm not sure I follow all the logic behind this house rule.

First, the argument for such a rule seems to be that attributes should play a larger role, not that players are failing skill tests too frequently. What that says to me is that game play is fine, but the logic of the mechanics is counterintuitive. I don't think that's a good reason to start messing with the rules.

I also think this rule contains a paradox. A Hobbit with Body 2(5) would get a +3 on favoured Body skills. Lets say it happens to be Athletics. A Beorning with Body 6(7) has a higher baseline Body score than the Hobbit's favoured Body score, yet only gets a +1 to Athletics. Meaning that at equal skill, the Hobbit is better at Athletics, supposedly due to his physical prowess...which is less than the Beorning's.

Finally, this rule would create a very strong incentive to align the +3 favoured bonus with favoured skills, and would encourage the clustering of favoured skills under one attribute, so that the +3 bonus gets used more often. And since all cultures have one starting favoured skill, that skill would tend to become the "attractor". In the example above, the Beorning would be tempted to give Body the +3, and then pick Background and Calling such that more Body skills would be favoured. Except for a couple of cultures/builds (e.g. all Dwarves, Barding archers) this incentive would outweigh any other considerations when creating characters. And for those exceptions the compelling strategy becomes to cluster favoured skills under the key attribute. For example, a Barding archer is going to want +3 on Body, so the incentive to then pick all Body skills for his favoured skills will be very strong.

So the fact that "favoured" attributes and skills are not really all that powerful, except on rare occasions, means that players don't feel as compelled by min-max considerations to make specific choices. I suspect that this proposed rule would change that.