Thought-Experiment: Virtues through Valour

[Rocmistro]

Well, then I should probably wait for my books to arrive, to get a more detailled look on Rewards.

@ Rocmistro:
I simply dislike items as a form as advancement.
A character advancement should - IMO - be some quality of the person and not his equipment.
It's just my personal preference.

@ all:
But as I said in the beginning, if you disagree and don't wish to tinker, just leave.
No hard feelings.

I agree with you about what character advancement should look like. I'd like to challenge you to think about the physical reward (the weapon or armor or whatever), though, as the physical representation of the character's social status. In other words, it's his Valour and past heroism that is being recognized through the receiving of gifts (ie, loot). It is his esteem and influence on his region that are increasing and being advanced. In game terms, this is actualized by receiving a gift and being entrusted with gear fitting of his position and past achievement.

I'm all for tinkering. In general, though, I'm for adding stuff tinkering, rather than changing stuff (for example, adding heroic cultures, more weapons and armor types, more virtues and blessings and rewards...things like that).

Now, back to the topic, though....I think you proposed having Blessings and Masteries apply across both Valour and Wisdom? (in other words, a hero who increases Valour or Wisdom is thus entitled to selecting a virtue or mastery.) Additionally, presumably, heroes can receive "gifts" which include the weapon/armor qualities as written in the book?

Assuming that's correct, here are a couple problems:

1. Valour blessings + Wisdom blessings + weapons and gear = just a bit too much "bonuses". You can do this, of course, it's just that heroes will become powerful than the game otherwise intends. Is that a bad thing? Only you can determine that. But if you want a group of heroes that looks more like the Fellowship of the Ring than the heroes of 1st or 2nd age Middle earth, such a ruling will make that harder.

2. Blessings and Masteries applied to both Wisdom/Valour...this sorta can work, but you'd have to throw in some other caveats and restrictions. For example, a Barding with Fierce Shot who spends 10 selections to make his favored body 18 will do 9/27/45 damage with a Great Bow. 45 damage on an extraordinary success will kind of ruin your game. A Woodsman with favored Wits of 20 will have a parry of 36 in Defensive stance with a a Protective Great Shield. The scale of the game is not meant to go to those extremes.

Edited: tighten up language.

[Michebugio]

1. Valour blessings + Wisdom blessings + weapons and gear = just a bit too much "bonuses". You can do this, of course, it's just that heroes will become powerful than the game otherwise intends. Is that a bad thing? Only you can determine that. But if you want a group of heroes that looks more like the Fellowship of the Ring than the heroes of 1st or 2nd age Middle earth, such a ruling will make that harder.

2. Blessings and Masteries applied to both Wisdom/Valour...this sorta can work, but you'd have to throw in some other caveats and restrictions. For example, a Barding with Fierce Shot who spends 10 selections to make his favored body 18 will do 9/27/45 damage with a Great Bow. 45 damage on an extraordinary success will kind of ruin your game. A Woodsman with favored Wits of 20 will have a parry of 36 in Defensive stance with a a Protective Great Shield. The scale of the game is not meant to go to those extremes.

I completely agree with Rocmistro's analysis. Game balance is at stake here, Draco, so your system should still limit players to 5 "Virtues" and 5 "Rewards" - you may not call them like that, but the let's say that the corresponding effects shouldn't stack more than they do in the RAW (i.e. Cultural Virtues may be taken once each, Masteries stack with themselves but you can't have more than 5 between Masteries and Virtues; Rewards are limited to 5 and some of them are not stacking with themselves).

But if such are the limitations... you can't actually change the system, at least not if you want to keep game balance as it is. All you can do is to simply treat Rewards' effects as resulting from training and skill, rather than from special crafting.

Examples: A Grievous Bow becomes a Damage bonus only when you use Bows (like D&D's Weapon Specialization), rather than a weapon with that effect. A Keen Sword becomes something like D&D's feat Improved Critical (sword), so instead of having a keener blade, you simply are better at scoring Piercing Blows with every sword you wield. And so on.

Notice that nothing changes in terms of game mechanics! All you have to do is to simply change the term "Rewards" into "Combat Masteries" or something like that, and it would also explain better the "plot immunity" of such effects.

[Rich H]

@ all:
But as I said in the beginning, if you disagree and don't wish to tinker, just leave.
No hard feelings.

Well, you can't stop people commenting in your thread but, more importantly, I think you'd be missing out on some good opinions as to how the system works and the intent of what it's trying to do. For instance some of the comments so far already fall into the "don't wish to tinker" and yet I'm sure they've provided you with valuable insights.

[Michebugio]

Well, you can't stop people commenting in your thread but, more importantly, I think you'd be missing out on some good opinions as to how the system works and the intent of what it's trying to do. For instance some of the comments so far already fall into the "don't wish to tinker" and yet I'm sure they've provided you with valuable insights.

No doubt that Rich has invested a lot of Experience points in his Wisdom score, Draco. I would listen to what he says, if I were you.

[Rich H]

No doubt that Rich has invested a lot of Experience points in his Wisdom score, Draco. I would listen to what he says, if I were you.

Ha ha, you don't know me very well. I must have 'Gandalfed' my Feat Die roll there!

On a little aside, I actually use a houserule that Rocmistro created with regards to creating a third Might stat which shares the same design space in the game as Valour and Wisdom and works really well.

[Rocmistro]

Thanks again, Rich.

Yeah, the Might stat came from Rules tinkering 2.0, after I had been playing for 2 years. And it was built from the top-down with a more comprehensive approach.

Rich, just out of curiousity, do you use the 6/6/6 paradigm for Might/Valour/Wisdom or do you set the cap out equal to the governing attribute?

[Rich H]

Rich, just out of curiousity, do you use the 6/6/6 paradigm for Might/Valour/Wisdom or do you set the cap out equal to the governing attribute?

Valour, Wisdom and Might can all got to 6 max and each time they're raised the player can select something for his character:

For Valour it's a selection from 3 Cultural Rewards and 6 non-cultural Qualities.

For Wisdom it's a selection from 3 Cultural Virtues and 4 non-cultural Masteries.

For Might it's a selection from 3 Cultural Boons and 4 non-cultural Talents.

In here starting at page 14: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/795 ... 0Rules.pdf

[DracoDruid]

Thanks for the wise words from all of you.
I really appreciate it, even though my idea might not fly as high as I had hoped.

And thanks for pointing me to the Might House-rule (and the rest of the document).
I think it aligns nicely with the 3 attributes.

As for now, I will hold all my tinkering and wait for the books to arrive (in april...)

But maybe one last tinkering:

Seeing (from first scanning) that MIGHT rolls are about enduring and not so much strength,
why not call it VIGOR?
(It has a nice ring: Vigor, Valour, Wisdom)

Cheers and have fun!

-- DD

[Rocmistro]

That's a good question. I thought "Vigor" was entrenched somewhere else in the rules, but I could be wrong.

Other than that, I think I tried to pick words that got a lot of usage in Tolkien's brand of vernacluar, so I went with Might.

[Glorelendil]

That's a good question. I thought "Vigor" was entrenched somewhere else in the rules, but I could be wrong.

Other than that, I think I tried to pick words that got a lot of usage in Tolkien's brand of vernacluar, so I went with Might.

Admit it: you wanted to call it Badassery