Defensive stance: Protect Companion

[Timmity Took]

Good point
Still, the defender has a harder time hitting the target, so I guess that is a "cost" in a way too.
Btw. How many times can a defender take the hit for a companion? What if there are more enemies than companions? No matter the double-axe gal and the tower-shield guy, th LM can still make a combat hard or challenging by attacking a third companion, using more enemies than companions, attacking with ranged weapons, using enemy special abilities or powerful oponents, ambushing- or wearing the players out with travel or other scenes ahead of combat. And combat isn't a walk in the park in this system to begin with...
Rewarding players for a clever use of fellowship focus-based tactics isn't necessarily a bad thing either.

[Glorelendil]

Rewarding players for a clever use of fellowship focus-based tactics isn't necessarily a bad thing either.

Agreed, and I don’t think it applies in this case. “You build a glass cannon, I will make a tank and then choose you for a fellowship focus, and we can use the same strategy every fight...” has been too thoroughly examined to count as “clever”.

Even the strategy of using Rally to heal the fellowship, including your focus, has by consensus (I believe) been disqualified as “indirect”.

On the other hand, finding ways to protect your focus using common skills often does take a bit of cleverness.

Hope is supposed to be a rare, precious, dwindling resource. It’s not really in the spirit of the game to find a hack that gives you a Hope ATM machine with an infinite balance.

[Timmity Took]

But how powerful is this tactic really?
As I described above, only with a few examples that sprang to mind, a LM can do lots of things to still make the combat challenging or hard...
The tower shield gives a high encumberance number and attacking from defensive isn't that effective, so it isn't like this would be game-breaking.. or?

And why shouldn't ff rules be powerful and effective as they represent a very thematic aspect of the fiction in question, that is companionship and protecting your fellow man. Yes, hope should be limited, but fellowship focus should make a difference! In my opinion, a big difference.

Note: I absolutely see you guys' perspective, but I like this discussion and I find the rules interesting. So I play devil's advocate or at least try to see different perspectives and arguements for and against.
I agree with you in many ways and see why hope should be precious.

[Timmity Took]

And yes, it is very specific that it is hope spent " that can be considred to directly protect or favour his Fellowship focus" so combat wouldn't apply by the RAW.
You are right, I was wrong ( the devil's advocate me at least :p )

"Can be considered" is pretty open for the LM to interptret though.

I still don't know if I would let the player use hope point to protect companion before or after the attack roll...

[Fridokind Wargaug]

But if protect companion suddenly becomes a free option, then you will see two-handed Axe swinging in Forward, protected by towershields in defensive.
Worst case, I know. But legal if you open that door.

My players actually talked about this option. FF are a rule to make the world alive by bringing friendship etc. to the game and not to optimize your fighting.

[Timmity Took]

I agree that this system is a setting emulator that is all about capturing the feel of a certain kind of story.
Anything that guides players to play to certain aspects of the story/genre/setting, like friendship, loyal companions and so on, should in many ways trump the fear of breaking the game. The Fellowship Focus rules should be strong and effective. And as I have described above(me or the devil`s advocate?...), I don`t think this would be a game-breaker, with everything a LM can do to still make combats interesting, challenging and dangerous.

[Borri]

I'm completely in with the RAW saying no free hope usage on Protect Companion. Yes, it looks "expensive", but comparing to the other combat task that needs a hope point to execute (Defensive Stance: Stand Ground), Protect Companion is really powerful. Besides the mentioned glass cannon tactic, one can use it well with Rally Comrades and Enhearten Comrades. That alone is worth a point of hope - especially with groups high on hope renewal (like ours with two hobbits )