Defence only viable stance for experienced characters

[Glorelendil]

The only way I could see "dice splitting" being viable is if you didn't use the Feat die on additional attacks. E.g., you have weapon skill 6, so you say, "I'll use 3 of my dice on one attack, then the other three on a second attack. Oh, and I'll use one of my Battle dice on the second attack, too." So 1d12 + 3d6 on the first attack, 4d6 on the second attack.

But even that is turning TOR into a different (more meta-gameable, more complex) RPG, so I won't be using such a house rule.

I do think that the three close combat stances could use a bit more differentiation, AND characters need more options for defense as they advance, in order to keep the choices interesting. (Order of attacks helps the LM organizationally, but has no really combat relevance.)

I like the "max success" dice idea (1 for Def, 2 for Open, 3 for Forward). And I'd like to see different combat tasks attemptable in different stances.

Adding weapon skill to Parry would have made a lot of sense, and would help this problem, but it would have to have been done when the game was still being designed/balanced. Maybe let players allocate skill dice to Parry? So, with weapon skill 6 you could roll 4 dice for the attack and add 2 points to Parry?

[Angelalex242]

You massively increase the odds for good things to happen with multiple attacks, it's true. Which, since the character is very experienced with having a 6 die weapon skill in the first place, is completely fair.

But ya know what else you increase? The odds of rolling an Eye.

Fair is fair. Triple the odds of a G Rune is Triple the odds of an Eye of Sauron as well. Granted, the odds of a piercing blow if you're using a keen fell bitter great spear goes up massively, but the odds of a G Rune and the odds of an Eye are always the same.

[Rich H]

You massively increase the odds for good things to happen with multiple attacks, it's true. Which, since the character is very experienced with having a 6 die weapon skill in the first place, is completely fair.

Who's saying it's just for characters with 6 ratings in Weaponskills? We're discussing stance options here for characters - not just those with 6 dice ratings. The issues being discussed here probably are affecting character with weaponskills of 4 or higher.

But ya know what else you increase? The odds of rolling an Eye..

That's true, although EYEs only allow the adversary to roll a called shot and if they don't get the appropriate number of success dice t's their attack actually misses. My players love it when they roll EYEs for that reason.

Only house rules though, so in the end go with what fits your game best.

[Glorelendil]

My players love it when they roll EYEs for that reason..

Slight digression, but in HermesSerpent's roll20 game this week my character got wounded. Rather than use a Hope point I said, "I want to see what happens with a wounded character."

The answer: Next round I rolled Eye, big orc with spear rolled a great success, and we ended up spending more Hope points, looking up Defend Ally and Escape Combat rules, and I discovered just how hard it is to hit enemies when your bow skill is 1 and you're Weary.

Good times.

[alien270]

No, with the d12, you just roll it 3 times, once per attack.

The issues you have there is increasing your chance to roll a G rune and auto success by the number of foes you want to attack, and also increasing your chance of a penetrating attack as well (on a successful hit) making the results for multiple attacks and splitting dice pools really odd. Add to that a player rolling multiple times - could well slow the game down.

The triple attack idea is the same as a beginning character who didn't up his weapon skill attacking thrice

How? Their 3 attacks would be spread across 3 combat turns; that's not the same, you'd be allowing a PC to attack multiple times within one combat round and because you'd be allowing the d12 to be rolled multiple times you're massively increasing the odds of an auto-success and a penetrating attack within that combat round - facing 3 enemies and you're increasing your chance of a G rune in that round from 1 in 12 to 1 in 4; for 6 attacks that goes up to 1 in 2. I'd take those odds as you're effectively allowing multiple attacks with no real penalty to doing them *and* increasing the chance of an auto success/penetrating attack - that seems like a very broken mechanic.

The way described in my additional rules does have a penalty that you roll less dice in total than you would if you were making those attacks over consecutive rounds. Your way is allowing all attacks in one round with no total success dice penalty. It's a win-win all the way. I personally think there should be a penalty/cost to the total dice you roll when making multiple attacks as making more attacks is harder than making just one.

I just read your rule, and it doesn't help as much with keeping stances relevant at higher experience levels. I'm the GM in the PbP game that Angelalex is referring to, and here is the house rule as I have it written:

House Rule 3: Multi-attacking

Heroes with 4 or more ranks in a weapon skill can choose to attack multiple foes with one action. Divide your success dice between the intended targets however you see fit, with the caveat that each target must have a minimum of 2 success dice allocated to it. Roll the Feat die separately for each target, but if you have an ability that lets you re-roll the Feat die you must pre-allocate it to one target.

This rule serves several purposes. It helps to speed up combat, it makes fights against large numbers of weaker foes more viable (less of a "grind"), and most importantly it preserves the incentive to use more aggressive stances even with high levels of skills in a weapon. This preserves the core combat tactic even at higher power levels, and makes Virtues that use Forward stance more viable.

Comparing the two (yours and mine), in yours you could attack 2 foes with 4 ranks in your weapon skill, and you'd roll the feat die + 3d6, with the result applying to both foes. Using my rule, the PC would split his die pool evenly making two attacks, each of which used the feat die + 2d6. So the "cost" of using your rule is actually lower!

While you're obviously taking out more enemies by multi-attacking, because your die pool is split attacks are made as if you had fewer ranks in your weapon skill, so you'll need to rely on Forward Stance just as much as that starting character who only HAS 2 ranks! Sticking with Defensive stance is likely to result in a lot of whiffs (moreso than using your rule). In a more aggressive stance, those Eyes WILL be more dangerous, offsetting the increased chance of rolling a Gandalf (or your weapon's Edge). Not to mention that weaker foes will actually have a decent shot of hitting you (whereas a conservative player in Defensive stance can sometimes only be hit if the enemy rolls an Eye or a very high roll on all dice).

So the rule also allows the GM to keep using weaker enemies as a viable threat against experienced Fellowships, albeit greater numbers of them. In a way, it's a method of generating "mook rules" in a system that lacks them. Sure, higher level PCs can mow through greater numbers of weak enemies either through the raw damage of multiple attacks or by causing more wounds, but by opting to do so they also allow those enemies to be more threatening to them, and besides the whole thing gives license to the GM to actually use larger numbers of enemies without combat bogging down into a big grind.

It only becomes "broken" if the GM doesn't use large numbers of weak enemies. The GM should be adapting the opposition to the abilities of the PCs anyways, and this house rule can be simply said to support a more "epic" style of play (though in truth the primary reason that I instituted it was to preserve the existence of interesting choices in the later-game. Whereas a starting character has to weigh accuracy against defensibility, experienced characters will be tempted to leave the "fortified tower" of Defensive stance every now again to mow through some mooks even if it leaves them vulnerable. This can become very interesting when there's a mixed opposition, say a troll or two supported by a bunch of weak orcs).

[Angelalex242]

Well, yes, the dice split is viable at 4 dice with two attacks, 5 dice with 2 attacks (a 3 and a 2), and 6 dice can roll 3 attacks, 2 attacks, or 1 attack as needed.

But yes, the feat dice should be included and rerolled for each attack.

You raise a point, though, about Eyes not being dangerous enough, and in fact helpful to the player characters. I wonder if it's supposed to read that enemies can take a called shot on an Eye, and a simple success triggers it. If they want to take a called shot normally, then they need a great success, but on an Eye called shot, simple success is enough.

Would that make Eyes sufficiently dangerous?

[alien270]

But ya know what else you increase? The odds of rolling an Eye..

That's true, although EYEs only allow the adversary to roll a called shot and if they don't get the appropriate number of success dice t's their attack actually misses. My players love it when they roll EYEs for that reason.

Only house rules though, so in the end go with what fits your game best.

And this brings up another interesting point, actually. In my opinion, the Adversary Called Shot rules really don't make a whole lot of sense. Your players shouldn't feel safer if they've rolled an Eye, they should fear some horrible consequences! In the past I've experimented with having a successful hit by the enemy automatically result in a successful Called Shot even if no 6's were rolled, and I think that worked better. In my current PbP game I've usually taken a different route, and just come up with some narrative consequences for the Eye instead of using it on the enemy's attack (in a sense, I'm treating an Eye as giving the enemy the OPTION of attempting a Called Shot, but I can just as well use that Eye for something else that actually will have a negative effect on the PC instead of making him harder to hit counterintuitively).

As a recent example, one of the Hobbits was in a tree with a great spider after just having cut some Elven prisoners loose from her webbing. He then went on to engage with the spider, and when he rolled an Eye I had him lose his footing on the branch and fall forward, barely grabbing onto some webbing with one hand and trying not to drop his sword with the other. I ruled that he was severely hindered as per the Complications table thanks to that awkward predicament, so his attack took a penalty of +4 to the TN, and attacks against him had their TN at -4. If I remember correctly that was the round that the spider used her Holding Spell on him though, so the major effect poor Falco had to endure was the decreased TN on his attack since the spider didn't attack him directly.

EDIT: Ninja'd, which is appropriate since you play Rathlyn

[Glorelendil]

But ya know what else you increase? The odds of rolling an Eye..

That's true, although EYEs only allow the adversary to roll a called shot and if they don't get the appropriate number of success dice t's their attack actually misses. My players love it when they roll EYEs for that reason.

Only house rules though, so in the end go with what fits your game best.

And this brings up another interesting point, actually. In my opinion, the Adversary Called Shot rules really don't make a whole lot of sense. Your players shouldn't feel safer if they've rolled an Eye, they should fear some horrible consequences!

I feel it works perfectly: there is, after all, a 1/12 chance of getting an eye so it can't be too dire. But as the rule is written you have a 1/12 chance of "Next turn, your opponent will probably miss you entirely, but if he hits you you're screwed."

As I said in my little anecdote, this happened to me, already with one wound, and I had to use a point of Hope to avoid dying. (Even then, it was a close shave: invoking an attribute bonus got me exactly to my TN with nothing to spare.)

[Rich H]

I just read your rule, and it doesn't help as much with keeping stances relevant at higher experience levels. I'm the GM in the PbP game that Angelalex is referring to, and here is the house rule as I have it written:

How does yours help more? Can't see anything obvious in this regard...

Comparing the two (yours and mine), in yours you could attack 2 foes with 4 ranks in your weapon skill, and you'd roll the feat die + 3d6, with the result applying to both foes. Using my rule, the PC would split his die pool evenly making two attacks, each of which used the feat die + 2d6. So the "cost" of using your rule is actually lower!

Only from one point of view. It's different if you look at it from a feat die point of view, which I was, and also you're rolling more d6's in total so you get more chance of tengwar results, so we could just as easily say the cost of your rule is actually lower. It just depends on what you think is more important in assessing the cost; you think one thing (d6's rolled in an attack), whereas I think another (more d12's rolled so more chance of Wounds and also d6's rolled in total).

While you're obviously taking out more enemies by multi-attacking, because your die pool is split attacks are made as if you had fewer ranks in your weapon skill, so you'll need to rely on Forward Stance just as much as that starting character who only HAS 2 ranks!

Yeah, same as the rule I use, the PCs move into forward stance if multi-attacking. In fact, it's a requirement of the house rule I use that they are in such a stance, which gives that stance an option others don't have.

In a more aggressive stance, those Eyes WILL be more dangerous

No different to the rule I use as far as I can tell. The EYEs only ever threaten a called shot which as we've both mentioned we don't think are very threatening to PCs.

though in truth the primary reason that I instituted it was to preserve the existence of interesting choices in the later-game. Whereas a starting character has to weigh accuracy against defensibility, experienced characters will be tempted to leave the "fortified tower" of Defensive stance every now again to mow through some mooks even if it leaves them vulnerable. This can become very interesting when there's a mixed opposition, say a troll or two supported by a bunch of weak orcs).

Agreed. Those are the same reasons as to why I've introduced multiple attacks in my game.

[Rich H]

But ya know what else you increase? The odds of rolling an Eye..

That's true, although EYEs only allow the adversary to roll a called shot and if they don't get the appropriate number of success dice t's their attack actually misses. My players love it when they roll EYEs for that reason.

Only house rules though, so in the end go with what fits your game best.

And this brings up another interesting point, actually. In my opinion, the Adversary Called Shot rules really don't make a whole lot of sense. Your players shouldn't feel safer if they've rolled an Eye, they should fear some horrible consequences! In the past I've experimented with having a successful hit by the enemy automatically result in a successful Called Shot even if no 6's were rolled, and I think that worked better.

I'd personally avoid that. I've played with the idea of interpreting an EYE on a player roll as some kind of fumble for their PC, like you state here:

In my current PbP game I've usually taken a different route, and just come up with some narrative consequences for the Eye instead of using it on the enemy's attack (in a sense, I'm treating an Eye as giving the enemy the OPTION of attempting a Called Shot, but I can just as well use that Eye for something else that actually will have a negative effect on the PC instead of making him harder to hit counterintuitively).

... I think that works better than a successful called shot without the need for any tengwar results. You could also have adversaries 'fumble' in some way when they roll a G rune - then there's a nice balance and parity between characters and adversaries.