House Rules for Heroic Heritage

[Rich H]

Spawned from this thread in the main section: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3669

This thread is to discuss house rules alterations to the Heroic Heritage rules found within the RAW. Indur posted the following in this thread...

Hi guys,

I have had the same thoughts about how it would work with a low XP companion and I came up with these benefits, that are inherited together with the XP:

10-19XP=+2XP+Your family wealth: Inherit 1/4 of the treasure form your father. Use it to buy Standing immediately.
20-29XP=4XP+Your fathers business: Inherit your fathers Holding, Rating limited to your Standing.
30-39XP=6XP+In your fathers foot steps: Gain the sanctuaries of your father
40-59XP=8XP+Fathers Trait: Inherit a special Trait from your father, such as Elf Friend.
60-79XP=10XP+Will you serve me as your father served me?: Inherit a Patron from your father
80-99XP=12XP+Fathers knowledge: The travelling role of your father is your birthright. Roll 2 FD and take the best, when testing this common skill. (Travel, Explore, Awareness or Hunting)
100-149XP=14XP+You are the Hope: You are blessed with +2 Hope, because your father was such a great a hero.
150-250XP=16XP+Toughest Training: The training you have received is the best there is +2 Endurance.
251+XP=18XP+Your father In you: Once per Adventure phase, you may tap into the experience of your father, if you spend a point of Hope, you may roll the test as if you were your father. (Common skills, Weapon skills, Valour and Wisdom)
Adventuring with more experienced companions: If your companions are superior to you in Wisdom and you are keen to learn from them, then every session, you gain a special Bonus XP until you have reached the level of expertise of your companions
Items: As a descendant of a hero, you have the option to Purchase, for your starting XP, the following items, if they are available:
2XP A Wonderous Artifact, if it is possessed by your father.
4XP A Famous Weapon or Armour, if it is possessed by your father.

Just an idea. I have thrown a little more XP in, but the main thing is the inheritance... I have not tried it yet, so I don't know how it would be received by players. Any thoughts??

Cheers

... And asked for comments!

[Falenthal]

Other options that come out of my mind, just for cases where RAW seems not to fit. This options can be used in addition to RAW, instead of RAW, some of them together, only one of them,... whatever you like:

1) Pass one object from the dead/retired character to the new one. Of course, invent a story that justifies it. Think of The Book of the Westmarch, that Bilbo passed to Frodo, and he to Sam. Great Blessing to Lore and gain the Specialty Hobbit-lore, I guess.

2) Give the new character a few more XPs per adventure than the rest of the group to represent that he learns not only from the adventure, but also from his companions.

3) Make a new character with a fraction of the old hero's XP and AP. Maybe the Hope and Shadow points should be fractioned in the same way (I haven't crunched the numbers, so I don't know for sure if there could be a mechanic to balance things)

4) Make new character with the same XP and AP as the lowest of the group. Equal also the Hope and Shadow points as far as possible with the group.

5) Make a whole new system of granting XPs to the group: Just give 1 XP per session to each player individually, and the rest of the XPs go to a Fellowship Pool. The players decide how to share this XPs. They can be shared equally, or given to the weakest member so that he can catch up with the rest. The group is as strong as its weakest member and all that. Again, I haven't figured out any numbers, so I don't know the best proportion between individual and communal XPs. The above mentioned quantity (1XP per session and player) was just a guess.

This last option can be used to simplify (if the numbers are set right) the extra difficulty for Rangers and Rivendell Elves to improve their XP skills: Rangers and Rivendell Elves cannot gain XPs from the Fellowship XP Pool. They are so seasoned that they can't learn anything from the lesser races or something like that (yeah, this sound too racist and myself don't believe they can't learn something, like the hobbits showed us again and again, but remember this are just ideas popping out of my head, so forgive me).
This way we wouldn't need an extra table with costs for improvements.

Beware, I still think the RAW should work ok. This is just for fun.

[Falenthal]

As for Indur's ideas, I'm normally "against" big tables with defined results. I like most/all of your ideas, but I wouldn't restrict them to a certain XP score range. I would use those ideas as options for the player to choose: Maybe the new character is from Lake-town and wants to have Esgaorth as Sanctury from the beginning. Why should this only happen if the older character had 30-39XP? If it fits the story, let it happen. Or maybe he is from Esgaroth and his background is that he works with the raft elves and has saved their lives at some point. It would fit to inherit the Elf-friend trait. Why limit it?

I'd only keep the table for the XPs correspondence, and leave the rest as open option from which to choose. In fact, they're a very good expansion to my limited idea of passing one object to the new character.

[zedturtle]

One thing that was suggested to me, based on my Heroic Investment ideas, was to do Undertakings in order to garner bonus XP for the next hero. Maybe I'll play around with Indur's list. I also don't care for the implied father-son thing; it's likely, but it shouldn't feel like the only option.

Maybe it belongs in the other thread, but let me say that I think y'all are right that the bonus counts as previous experience... I do dearly wish that we had another term (like Starting Points) so as to distinguish between those points (that don't work like regular Experience Points) and actual in-game XP.

[Corvo]

About Indur's idea, the major stumbling block I see is that, most of the time, the new character isn't the previous one's son.
Becase the second character is from a different people, or because the first character died at a fairly young age, so that any offspring -if there is any- isn't old enough to go adventurin'.

[Indur Dawndeath]

About Indur's idea, the major stumbling block I see is that, most of the time, the new character isn't the previous one's son.
Becase the second character is from a different people, or because the first character died at a fairly young age, so that any offspring -if there is any- isn't old enough to go adventurin'.

My idea was to get some special benefits if you retire and your son, daughter or someone you adopted, like Bilbo adopts Frodo, takes over.
It makes no real sense that a completely new character from another culture get a chance to inherit traits, patrons or magical items from the old character.
In this way you can encourage players to build a family / house and think about their future AND get a benefit if they do.
If the players have not thought about it / planned for it, then I'd only give them the standard XP.

As for Falenthal's comment, I agree that a list is very restrictive. But without it how could you then determine what to give to make it fair for everyone? And a new character in a very experienced group really need more "help" to make a difference in the group.

I'm looking forward to see what Zedturtle can come up with

Cheers

[Glorelendil]

The bequeathment of weapons and armor to heirs is problematic, despite its role in the texts, because of the general limitation that you only get as many rewards/qualities as your Valour. Of course, that rule is a bit flexible once magical items are introduced, because each item increases the total by 1. So that may give us a solution: items bequeathed to heirs (by blood or otherwise) function like magical items found in troves: you get one "activated" quality immediately, after which you have to spend a Valour point for each additional quality (possibly right from the start, if the new character takes Valour 2).

This has the potential to be...or at least seem...overpowered. A Hobbit who inherits a Mithril Shirt and an enchanted short sword from his uncle could potentially start with three enchanted qualities (which are, of course, more powerful than standard qualities.)

On the other hand, if his uncle did enough adventuring to actually acquire that gear, then presumably the uncle's companions are similarly equipped. So if the nephew is joining them for adventures with his measly 10 XP he'll need the help.

Just throwing this out there. Might still be too much.

[Terisonen]

I think we fall within the Kingdom of Master who has always the final cut. I don't really see the need to make rule for that kind of case. However, discussion here will be very interesting. May be to create Family Reward... Or Family Virtue to pass on heir.

[Indur Dawndeath]

The bequeathment of weapons and armor to heirs is problematic, despite its role in the texts, because of the general limitation that you only get as many rewards/qualities as your Valour. Of course, that rule is a bit flexible once magical items are introduced, because each item increases the total by 1. So that may give us a solution: items bequeathed to heirs (by blood or otherwise) function like magical items found in troves: you get one "activated" quality immediately, after which you have to spend a Valour point for each additional quality (possibly right from the start, if the new character takes Valour 2).

This has the potential to be...or at least seem...overpowered. A Hobbit who inherits a Mithril Shirt and an enchanted short sword from his uncle could potentially start with three enchanted qualities (which are, of course, more powerful than standard qualities.)

On the other hand, if his uncle did enough adventuring to actually acquire that gear, then presumably the uncle's companions are similarly equipped. So if the nephew is joining them for adventures with his measly 10 XP he'll need the help.

Just throwing this out there. Might still be too much.

That was one of my ideas.
Pay 2XP for a Wondrous artefact
Pay 4XP for a Famous weapon
Of course you need Valour to unlock 2nd and 3rd ability... I think at least this fits completely with the source material.
Frodo was also welcome in Rivendell, because Bilbo was an "Elf Friend". So to inherit a trait such as that could also be validated from the writings of Tolkien.
Bilbo also adopted Frodo because he had a special character, that Bilbo believed was required to handle his inheritance, so why not give special benefits that make your successor stand out from the crowd.
...

[Terisonen]

Bilbo was an Elf Friend also because he was talking to elves when he could find them. That this taste will be given by his Uncle is certain.