Valour and Fear

[Indur Dawndeath]

Just remember that failed fear test i.e. Daunted, unlocks powerful abilities like Visions of Torment and Deadly Voice.
Additionally, many players have saved their lives succeeding at a protection test with Hope, while being low on endurance.
That said. Wisdom tests are far more frequent.

My fix for this is to add special abilities to adversaries, so that it becomes more dangerous to fail the fear test against creatures of darkeness...

I like to tell the players that Fear is the enemys most powerful weapon.

[Yepesnopes]

My fix for this is to add special abilities to adversaries, so that it becomes more dangerous to fail the fear test against creatures of darkeness...

I like to tell the players that Fear is the enemys most powerful weapon.

This is also a very cool approach!

[tomcat]

Just remember that failed fear test i.e. Daunted, unlocks powerful abilities like Visions of Torment and Deadly Voice.
Additionally, many players have saved their lives succeeding at a protection test with Hope, while being low on endurance.
That said. Wisdom tests are far more frequent.

My fix for this is to add special abilities to adversaries, so that it becomes more dangerous to fail the fear test against creatures of darkeness...

I like to tell the players that Fear is the enemys most powerful weapon.

Thank you for this - it gives me more to think about. I would love to see examples of your adversaries and the special abilities you applied.

I want to make Fear a more powerful weapon of the Enemy, but I don't want to break what we have in RAW.

Thanks!

[Indur Dawndeath]

Thank you for this - it gives me more to think about. I would love to see examples of your adversaries and the special abilities you applied.

I want to make Fear a more powerful weapon of the Enemy, but I don't want to break what we have in RAW.

Thanks!

No problem
I'm not breaking RAW in my game, I'm simply adding a few existing abilities to some adversaries, to make Valour more important.
Example: Gibbet King got Visions of Torment and in the final confrontation, he also got Black dread and the ability to affect multiple foes with Visions of Torment.
That made him a very tough enemy if the Valour test was failed. Lots of Hope were burned to avoid being Daunted.

Later on the players attempted to remove the collar from Feredrun on top of The Carrock (to counter Saurons power with the natural power of the site)
They needed 7 craft tests, normal success did not count, in 7 rounds(hours) while being attacked by forces of evil.
The attack was in the form of fear. Terror each round (greater success only added bonus dice to next test), once Daunted they had to resist Dispair (Wisdom) every round or become misserable, once misserable old wounds would spring open (protection).
Additionally, all Daunted companions were attacked by Visions of Torment or Dreadful Spells Grieve if Shadow score was low. And one was targeted specifically by the combined forces of evil, Black Dread.

Result was one Bout of Madness and freedom for Feredrun!
Epic
Now they have a star in the sky watching out for them...

[Rich H]

I'm not breaking RAW in my game, I'm simply adding a few existing abilities to some adversaries, to make Valour more important.

Just to be clear, are you adding these extra abilities when one or more PCs fails their Valour roll? Or, you just pick some extra abilities that are Fear based for certain adversaries so such tests are more common?

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I've used, and like the idea of, adding abilities to opponents based on characters failing a Fear test; it represents such Adversaries being bolstered by the PCs' failure to stand strong in the face of their enemies and makes Fear tests more critical, although it could be *really* deadly - ie, you've failed the test, are therefore Daunted, *and* now face enemies with additional abilities. Ouch, caution advised!

[Indur Dawndeath]

Just to be clear, are you adding these extra abilities when one or more PCs fails their Valour roll? Or, you just pick some extra abilities that are Fear based for certain adversaries so such tests are more common?

I've used, and like the idea of, adding abilities to opponents based on characters failing a Fear test; it represents such Adversaries being bolstered by the PCs' failure to stand strong in the face of their enemies and makes Fear tests more critical, although it could be *really* deadly - ie, you've failed the test, are therefore Daunted, *and* now face enemies with additional abilities. Ouch, caution advised!

I've just added the abilities. Haven't thought about your approach, but that sounds interresting!
So far, I've only added abilities to undeads and such to make Fear more powerful when the players faced creatures who use fear as a weapon, but your idea would work well with all enemies.
I like the idea that a bad ass orc chieftain would get additional abilities if his opponent is Daunted. He could get the ability where opponents has to pass a Valour to attack or loose the round, Can't remember the name from Rivendel, or just Hatred "Daunted foes" from the beginning.
Fear should be a bad situation, but I like the way C7 has made fear work, and not just "run away for 1d6 rounds"...

[Rich H]

Fear should be a bad situation, but I like the way C7 has made fear work, and not just "run away for 1d6 rounds"...

Agreed. They avoided the 'that rule sucks' on this, certainly!

[Arkat]

I know this is an old discussion, but since the came up in my game recently I thought I'd offer my perspective. My experience mirror those who think Wisdom is the more important virtue. All the players in my game favor wisdom, both because it comes up more often, has more lasting consequences and because cultural virtues are cooler than rewards. All this is problematic, but my main concern is somthing else entirely.

Because It has dawned on me that there is something thematically wrong with how Valor and Fear works in the game. It is a bit hard to explain, but my notion is that fear and heroism seems to be linked in the works of the professor (and other works of heroic fiction). To be heroic is to face your fear and do the right thing anyway.

And since hope is the primary way characters in TOR overcome the seemingly impossible, it feels wrong that fear should limit hope use. On the contrary, I think fear aught to be a hope sink. I haven't thought this through, but one simple solution could be to say that characters get severly hindered (+4 to difficulty) under the effects of fear. And perhaps get a point of corruption on top. It would mean stepping on wisdom's toes, but I think it would make being valorous more important.

[Rich H]

If you take a look at the first issue of Hall of Fire, there's a pretty good article on Fear in it that you can easily use or tailor/tweak for your own campaign. Within those rules, it has different results based on how much the fear test is failed by; some I don't agree with but others fit. I recommend people interested in this take a look.

[Arkat]

Will do. Thanks for the heads-up