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The outcome is guaranteed. You step up and intercept an attack towards an ally of yours. That is the outcome. If the attack hits or misses depends on the later attack roll made against the actual defender (now: you since you stepped in the middle of the fray to protect your companion).

The problem with Shieldmaiden's strategy is that it sucks Hope from the company like a whirlpool. If a combat lasts 4 rounds that is 4 Hope points drained in a single combat. An adventure with a pair of combats is likely to leave the Fellowship really short on Hope despite Hope recovery. After 2 or 3 years of adventuring you will be quite miserable.

Xavi

I'm not expecting them to do it every round, just when it's important. I'm interested in seeing how much Hope the company gets through tonight, now they're in the latter, fighty half of Darkness in the Marshes. They only spent two Hope between them last week (in two and a half hours of play, with a Fellowship pool of nine.) That did seem mostly down to the failures being so spectacular that it wouldn't have done any good.

Elmoth wrote:The problem with Shieldmaiden's strategy is that it sucks Hope from the company like a whirlpool. If a combat lasts 4 rounds that is 4 Hope points drained in a single combat. An adventure with a pair of combats is likely to leave the Fellowship really short on Hope despite Hope recovery. After 2 or 3 years of adventuring you will be quite miserable.

Personally as a LM I'd allow it that if you're defending your Fellowship Focus then you get the point of Hope back* as you are successful - ie, you've defended them. You may get hit though, which could be a problem for someone else that has you as their focus. Not always though.

* Note; strictly by the RAW, that's not correct as the rules state: If a player spends a Hope point to get 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. So, in the above usage, a character isn't using Hope to get an attribute bonus. I think it's within the spirit of the rules though.

Shieldmaiden wrote:I'm glad this discussion happened, because I think it's going to make for a really useful tactic in my game and I probably would have forgotten to emphasise that you don't give up your attack to use it. The Beorning in the company is going to be absolutely devastating with his great spear, but he's very vulnerable to attack (low parry, low armour) and there are several characters with high parry scores and/or lots of armour who would do well to protect him. Funnily enough, one of them is a Hobbit.

Never underestimate the danger of a angry Hobbit.

I was not aware you have to spend the point of Hope BEFORE the attack is rolled against your ally. That kind of sucks.

daddystabz wrote:I was not aware you have to spend the point of Hope BEFORE the attack is rolled against your ally. That kind of sucks.

Agreed - especially since it's a selfless act to begin with. It kinda screws the guardian twice IMO.



Robert

We have used this in game and it works well. The hope just comes from the Fellowship.

The frontline people are hard core axe wielders who take no crap.

If the defended one is a focus, I rule that it's free. So you can just fight defensive covering your focus, like a two man SEAL Buddy Pair.

We have a large fellowship, though, 12 Points. (10 players, 2 are Hobbits).

We hardly ever use all Hope per adventure, except maybe once or twice it's been where someone used 4 hope and got 3 back, but next session, everyone goes back to full.

And it's been nasty, nasty combats, but a lot of Gandalfs get tossed. So they have been lucky.

The rule just seems inconsistent with the rest of the game and the themes of Tolkien to me. One of the large themes in Tolkien's stories and in the game is self sacrifice for the ones you love. This is what this maneuver is all about. You shouldn't be punished for acting heroically.

The Hope mechanic in-game allows you to decide AFTER rolling the dice as to if you wish to spend a point of Hope on a roll or not in order to not punish you by making you spend such a precious resource unneededly. I do not understand why this mechanic seems to work counter to that logic.

But when do you know that the enemy attack succeeded? You're not supposed to see the dice, and know how much it rolled, so you can't know if spending Hope and taking the attack will help or not.

Etarnon wrote:a lot of Gandalfs get tossed. So they have been lucky.

Nobody tosses a wizard!