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I'm very unclear on what fatigue does, mechanically.

When a character's endurance drops enough to meet their Fatigue score, then a character is weary. Weary characters don't count the white numbers on the d6s. Otherwise, until the scores meet (either through fatigue rising due to failed travel checks, or endurance dropping through damage), I don't think it does anything mechanically.

I don't have my book with me at the moment, but that's all that I can think of off the top of my head. Hope that helps!

Ah, yes. Now I remember. That organization of these books makes it exceedingly hard to find these little morsels of information.

That's why you should run, don't walk, over to the stickied thread and get a copy of expanded, crowd-sourced, index as that is a much better version than the one in the books.

I for one think that Fatigue scores need to be re-calibrated somewhat if they are going to let players fight in large scale battles like Helm's Deep or the defense of Osgiliath. Men of Gondor wear coats of mail and helms, the men of Rohan wear scale Hauberks and helms, and other more war like cultures stay armed for war. Base a coat of mail and helm is 20 fatigue and then you add weapons or a shield and you are looking at 25-27 fatigue and you are weary after the first hit in combat. I hope that if the game stretches to the War of the Ring that there is some way to lower fatigue or simply that it is adjusted. I know you can lower the fatigue with Valor but it seems too little too late. Anyone else care to chime in on this topic?

I definitely get where you are coming from Valdur--it seems really hard to fight wearing all that armor and carrying multiple weapons. I always thought it was kind of a feature of the game instead of a flaw though. I think it's really flavorful that you can pile on weapons and armor like crazy if you want, but guess what as soon as you get into a serious fight you are going to be TIRED. You can continue to fight when you're weary, but is it worth the cost?

I think that's really the best part of how the fatigue/endurance system works--choosing weapons and armor becomes just that--a choice. In many other systems you ALWAYS take the heaviest possible weapons and armor--the benefit is huge, the drawback isn't too big a deal. Making the drawback larger brings more choice back into selecting armor and weapons for your hero.

I'm really torn about the armor thing. I've been running simulations, and with only a few exceptions (notably Dwarves) better armor doesn't increase your odds of winning a fight.

The difference is that without armor you "lose" the fight by getting wounded more, and with armor you "lose" by having endurance go to zero while missing your opponent with all those zeroes rolled.

So at first glance, just looking at the data coming out of my sim, it seems that armor confers no advantage. But in actual game play, in a Fellowship, falling unconscious is WAY better than getting wounded twice. And if this trade-off was Francesco's intention, then I applaud him for nailing the numbers (really, armor barely shifts the needle in terms of win:loss ratios, it just changes how you lose).

It intuitively seems like you should win more with good armor, but on the other hand I like that I don't have to wear armor without feeling like I'm totally gimping myself. So, like I said, I'm torn.

One idea: "Cunning Make" quality could reduce encumbrance by 25% (1 for leather shirt, 5 for mail hauberk) instead of a straight 2 across the board.

Historically the point of battle wasn't to kill all your enemies, it was to neutralize them. Injuring and demoralizing are easier and more common ways of doing this, and for the most part armies will take prisoners rather than slaughtering the wounded. I'd rather be taken out of the fight by a minor injury or exhaustion than by a serious wound. I wear my armor to save my life, not to enable me to fight longer—most soldiers had to provide their own arms and armor.

Stormcrow wrote:Injuring and demoralizing are easier and more common ways of doing this, and for the most part armies will take prisoners rather than slaughtering the wounded.

Depends on the army....

Oh my yes. I actually think there's several creatures in the LM's guide who don't have the No Quarter ability and should. I'd even consider making No Quarter universal, just to drive the point home.