Adjusting Rangers and High Elves

[Glorelendil]

I was proposing that the Ranger only gets 1 Hope if all Foci are safe.

[Otaku-sempai]

LOL! I have an image on one single Ranger holding off Sharkey minions thanks to a Fellowship pool with a few thousand points of Hope.

Sharkey's minions seemed like a craven, cowardly lot. Bat-ranger could handle them easily.

[Falenthal]

I was proposing that the Ranger only gets 1 Hope if all Foci are safe.

But what's the benefit of selecting 4 Foci instead of just one? It's surely easier to protect just one character and get your single Hope point.
There's something I'm missing here.
I guess there should some gamble: more foci, more difficult, but also more Hope if able to secure them all to safety.

[Glorelendil]

I was proposing that the Ranger only gets 1 Hope if all Foci are safe.

But what's the benefit of selecting 4 Foci instead of just one? It's surely easier to protect just one character and get your single Hope point.
There's something I'm missing here.
I guess there should some gamble: more foci, more difficult, but also more Hope if able to secure them all to safety.

It gives you more opportunities to spend Hope to protect all those Foci during the Adventure.

If a player spends a Hope point to invoke an Attribute bonus to accomplish an action that can be considered to directly protect or favour his Fellowship focus and succeeds, he immediately recovers the Hope point he just spent.

[zedturtle]

I like that solution... as others have said, it helps create the behaviour you might expect from the source material and comes with its own automatic downside. Very nice!

[Falenthal]

So, the usual mechanic of Fellowship Focus gets susbstitued by this, except for Rangers and High Elves focuses?

Looks like Hope expenditure would be more alike to invoking Traits for a Ranger. Would like to see this in action, it could work very well.

[Rich H]

I like it, having thought about it a lot more.

It will make the players of Ranger really, well, focus on protecting their Fellowship companions and they'll largely look to actions that directly protect/help them in order to get those hope points back that they may spend on attribute bonuses during such actions. It should make them behave differently to other cultures in this regard; I know I'd certainly play one in that way, even taking everyone in the Fellowship as a focus, so I could pretty much act and behave like the guardian of the group - always looking to protect and help whoever is in need but hanging back and letting others take the lead in other circumstances.

If they are played like the above then I think it'd create a really cool and interesting additional dynamic to play.

Best compliment I can pay: I now want to play one.

[Falenthal]

In the hands of some individuals, this might lead to over-arguments regarding how his actions directly help the focus, thus reclaiming the refund of their Hope point or a free PDF of the Error supplement.
This people deserve the Black Numenórean Culture, though.

Otherwise, it looks as a good house-rule. Me likes.

[Glorelendil]

Best compliment I can pay: I now want to play one.

I actually want to play one (again) now, too.

The idea of only allowing Foci of certain cultures is bothering me. That feels contrived. It could be restricted to Foci whose Valour + Wisdom are less than their own...that would also be flavorful, and prevent gaming of the system by making the whole fellowship Foci every time...but in many/most games there might not be anybody that qualifies. Thoughts?

How about (this is already complicated...) you take the Ranger's higher Valour or Wisdom, and he can only have Foci whose own Valour or Wisdom is lower. I.e., a 3 Wisdom, 2 Valour ranger can only have Foci with 2 Wisdom or lower. In the event of a tie the Ranger chooses which "type" he is.

[Falenthal]

How about (this is already complicated...) you take the Ranger's higher Valour or Wisdom, and he can only have Foci whose own Valour or Wisdom is lower. I.e., a 3 Wisdom, 2 Valour ranger can only have Foci with 2 Wisdom or lower. In the event of a tie the Ranger chooses which "type" he is.

Remember that the Eye of Sauron rule considers characters with a rating of 4 in either Wisdom or Valour already "dangerous" to Sauron.
This could be the limit to apply for a Ranger's focus.