Heroic Training/Investment (Alt Rules for Heroic Heritage)

[zedturtle]

As has been discussed elsewhere on the site, I'm starting up Darkening of Mirkwood and I'd like to see (intentional) character turnover... to that objective, I've proposed a house rule, to wit:

Heroic Investment
Note: these rules are in lieu of the generational rules that will appear in the Adventurer's Companion. They will likely be superseded at some point in the future by official rules.

Even the most determined hero will find that one day his sword is not as keen as it once was, or that her eye-sight is no longer eagle-sharp. Wise adventurers will prepare for this day by spending time training the younger generations, so that one might take their place one day.

Each Year's End Fellowship Phase, a hero may elect to invest one Experience Point. While the XP still counts towards the character's total, it cannot be used for any other purpose. No more than one XP per Year's End may be invested, and the total invested cannot exceed 14 XP. When that character is killed, retired, lost to the Shadow or otherwise no longer available, if the number of invested Experience Points exceeds the number that the new hero would gain from Heroic Heritage, then the invested total is used instead.

What do people think? We're going to be running one adventure per year (at least most years), so we're talking something down the road... 10 to 15 years from the start date, I'd imagine, to max out the XP bonus.

[Tantavalist]

Honestly, I fail to see how this is in any way useful. Surely after 15 years of play a character should have a high enough xp total that the amount of xp invested this way will be pointless. It's certainly not enough to justify losing out on one experience point every year for most of a character's career.

Having the xp bonus from this apply in addition to the Heroic Heritage bonus is most likely making a starting character far too powerful, but having one or the other is too minor a benefit to be worth bothering with.

I do like the idea, but I think you should likely come up with some benefit beyond just having more bonus points to start with. Having the new character start with one of the old one's Traits for free, perhaps ("His manner reminded all who saw him of his mighty Father")- or getting a bonus Reward when the character retires ("Let my blade still guard my people even though I lack the strength to wield it"). I'm not sure how this should be balanced in terms of how much time or experience should be invested, though.

[Deadmanwalking]

Yeah, to agree with the previous post and dip into some math, even assuming only 5 xp a year, by the time you hit 14 years, we're talking 70 xp. That's enough for 8 xp on the new character right there. Giving up 14 xp on one character for, effectively, only 6 on another? That's just not a sound choice.

And this only becomes more true the more xp you get to. Since at 110 xp, it's a trade of 14 xp for 4 xp, and the trade only gets worse from there. It's also bad at lower total xp, where it might be granting more of a benefit, but never actually a good trade. 35 total xp with 7 invested? You're trading 7 for 3. And so on and so forth.

So...yeah, this is pretty universally a bad trade mechanically. I guess it's theoretically a little more worth it if you really pile up the Permanent Shadow and refuse to retire...but that's a pretty easily avoided situation IME, and even then, it's always worse than a 1 for 1 trade.

[Angelalex242]

...I'd say you have to make them stack (and let people buy valor and wisdom with it, at the same rate as weapon skills) for it to be worth it.

A high elf with 28 bonus XP in addition to the 16 he starts with could kick some serious hindquarters out the gate, particularly since his increased XP costs don't apply to the initial set.

[zedturtle]

Hmmm. My original idea was a 2:1 deal. Invest 1 XP, get 2 XP for the new character. I went away from it, for simplicity reasons but maybe it's worth reconsidering.

[Deadmanwalking]

Hmmm. My original idea was a 2:1 deal. Invest 1 XP, get 2 XP for the new character. I went away from it, for simplicity reasons but maybe it's worth reconsidering.

That'd actually be worth it...at least if you don't expect to get over 100 xp.

[Angelalex242]

I think the best way to do it is:

A:Consider how much XP the party will have at the end of the campaign.
B:Consider how much XP the humans would need to keep up with the elves, dwarves, and dunedain who don't need to replace their characters.

Judge ratios accordingly.

[Terisonen]

As has been discussed elsewhere on the site, I'm starting up Darkening of Mirkwood and I'd like to see (intentional) character turnover... to that objective, I've proposed a house rule, to wit:

Heroic Investment
Note: these rules are in lieu of the generational rules that will appear in the Adventurer's Companion. They will likely be superseded at some point in the future by official rules.

Even the most determined hero will find that one day his sword is not as keen as it once was, or that her eye-sight is no longer eagle-sharp. Wise adventurers will prepare for this day by spending time training the younger generations, so that one might take their place one day.

Each Year's End Fellowship Phase, a hero may elect to invest one Experience Point. While the XP still counts towards the character's total, it cannot be used for any other purpose. No more than one XP per Year's End may be invested, and the total invested cannot exceed 14 XP. When that character is killed, retired, lost to the Shadow or otherwise no longer available, if the number of invested Experience Points exceeds the number that the new hero would gain from Heroic Heritage, then the invested total is used instead.

What do people think? We're going to be running one adventure per year (at least most years), so we're talking something down the road... 10 to 15 years from the start date, I'd imagine, to max out the XP bonus.

I Would rather assign 1 points for each Fellowship Phase as an undertaking...

[Indur Dawndeath]

I Would rather assign 1 points for each Fellowship Phase as an undertaking...

This is not a bad idea at all!
Spend a fellowship phase training you successor. Add one XP to the starting XP of your chosen successor.
This should be limited to End of Year, though.

Thanks for the idea Terisonen

[zedturtle]

Okay, undertaking-based rules. I've struggled with this quite a bit, and I think that this basically has to be considered alternate rules for character creation... trying to make it come out exactly is just not going to work out.

Also, it's known that new generational rules will come out in the Adventurer's Companion. I suppose this can go on the record as my sketch of how I would do such rules...

HEROIC TRAINING RULES:

Quote about training goes here.

No hero can strive against the Shadow unceasingly; eventually every here will either retire from his adventuring career or be unmade by it. To this end, players should plan for another hero to be ready to step up when their current one is no longer available. Special optional rules are given here for nominating Heirs and spending Undertakings training them.

The Heir

The rules below refer to the character being created as the Heir, and the current character as the Trainer. Despite these terms, there is no particular expectation that the new character actually be related in any way to the old character, they can simply be someone that the old character connected to in some way. Alternate Idea: In a stable group, it might be interesting for the trainee to be someone else's Heir. In other words, the character who you are training is not your replacement character, but your friend's character. This can relieve some of the narrative discongruities, but everyone will need to be on the same page as to how often training sessions should occur.

Creating the Heir

To create an heir, select a culture and a background for that culture. Record the starting skill ratings and the Heir's calling. At this point you should have all traits defined and all favoured skills selected. At this point, stop... the previous experience starting points and selection of Valour versus Wisdom will occur during training.

[[ Breaking this up... Training Undertakings next post... ]]