Body Attribute vs. Heart Attribute: a pugilist consideration

[Michebugio]

Me (the LM) and my group are at the third TOR session and a discussion has risen over the Body attribute that I’m going to share with you, hoping to hear your ideas.

Introduction: I’ve been an amateur pugilist for years and I’ve done a lot of sparring since I begun almost a decade ago. While in the last rounds your body is just wasted and it’s really a matter of HEART, for the biggest part of the combat you’ll thank more your sheer physical training than your motivation to continue. Breath, arms, legs, your BODY is what keeps you up for 8-9 rounds, while your HEART can make the difference only from the 10th round until the end. Main counter-argument: TOR combat isn’t exactly a boxing match, of course.

In-game issue: A lot of players tend also to consider the Body Attribute as the classical “dump” stat, the one with the least effect on game mechanics. I partially agree: you don’t get a feeling of it until you score at least a Tengwar on your attack roll, which happens quite rarely at the early stages of the game. On the other side, you constantly feel the effect of your Wits (Parry rating) while your Heart really seems the most important stat: Resistance and Hope are always there and they are damn important, and Heart influences probably the most important rolls in and out of combat (Inspire, Travel, Insight, Healing, Battle).

I can see the growing frustration of my Beorning player who was thrilled to play the classical Conan-style character, big, powerful and not so bright, but nevertheless a fearsome warrior by sheer physical prowess. He increased his Body with experience points but now he feels like he wasted them: his giant of a man only slightly increased his damage output, while his Resistance is still the same as at the beginning. Oh yeah, he can also jump higher and run faster… provided he spends Hope on those rolls. I told him he should spend his experience to increase his damage or Resistance, not just on his Body, but still it doesn’t feel right.

Proposed solution (will be tested in the next session): since I see Heart a bit too predominant, I would use Body to determine the Resistance score of the players. After all, Body is involved also in protection rolls against Penetrating Strikes, so it DOES already measure a character’s resiliency. Using Body to determine Resistance rewards a bit more your warriors, while they still shouldn’t completely overlook Heart, because they need it to recover faster after a combat (besides Hope and Heart rolls, which still matter like hell).
To make it more interesting, though, I would add something: a new combat maneuver called

SECOND WIND: while in Defensive Stance, if you’re not Fatigued, Miserable or Wounded, instead of attacking you can recover a number of Resistance points equal to your Heart. You can do this once per combat and you can combine this maneuver with the removal of your helmet (if any) in the same action, recovering 3 + Heart Resistance points.

Rationale: again, as a pugilist you need to stay up until the end or until you opponent goes down. No matter your Heart, it’s your Body training that allows you to accomplish this. BUT it ALWAYS comes the moment when you need to find the motivation to continue: you stop attacking, evaluate your condition, catch your breath and tell yourself you MUST keep going. This is something your training can’t do, it’s just a matter of will (Heart).

Opinions? The fight is on!

[Woodclaw]

I disagree that Body is the dump stat for a fighter, on the simple ground that all weapon skills get the Atrribute bonus from body. If your players tend to fight in Forward stance only then I understand the problem, otherwise I think that Body is already a pretty important factor in the combat equation.
On the other hand I understand your point and I think that your solution is worth exploring.

[Sprigg]

As my new player and I were discussing his character a few days ago, this exact discussion came up. The rationalization was that endurance is measured not just in fortitude (the actual base stat from the culture) but on will to continue on.

However, all my players feel body doesn't do enough, and perhaps heart and wits do too much in comparison, since both apply to passive constants (parry, hope, endurance) and body comes into play very situationally. None of us really have a satisfactory solution though. Every system had flaws, and if this is the biggest we've found then well done.

[Angelalex242]

Well, the simplest answer is that body->Endurance and heart->Hope.

Shouldn't the 7 Body Beorning or Dwarf have more health?

[Woodclaw]

Well, the simplest answer is that body->Endurance and heart->Hope.

Shouldn't the 7 Body Beorning or Dwarf have more health?

It depends on how do you consider Endurance.
In my eyes Endurance is less about sturdiness of body and more about willingness to ignore pain and exaustion a bit longer. A character losing endurance might have bruises and small cuts all over him, but nothing life-threatening, opposed to wounded character.

Physical tougher races tend to have a higher base Endurance score which - I think - represent their sturdiness, while the addition of the Heart socre represent that going the final 5 rounds that Michebugio talked about in the first post.
We can argue about the effectiveness of this method, but this is how things goes in my eyes.

[Angelalex242]

Eh. Maybe I'm just too used to thinking of Body as a combination of D&D's strength score+con score.

But in this game, Heart is actually your con.

There's still the problem, though, of heart doing too much. If Body->End were implemented, the tough races get tougher, and hobbits are now made of paper.

[Yusei]

hobbits are now made of paper.

The way I see hobbits, they are quite tough but are not strong fighters. I like the way Body describes how strong you are and how well you fight, and Heart describe how resilient you are. I'm far from convinced that hobbits are less tough than dwarves. Doesn't that idea come from D&D?

[Angelalex242]

Well, Body doesn't actually describe how well you fight unless you roll a T rune. Then it matters. If Body were added to EVERY hit, not just T rune hits, it might be different.

Maybe you get your body as a damage bonus to every hit, and then if you roll T runes, you get it more times over.

The current system of not getting your body to damage rolls might only apply to weary characters instead. (Too tired to use their full muscle power)

[Yusei]

Body also gives you your attribute bonus to hit, when you spend hope.

[Stormcrow]

Body also gives you your attribute bonus to hit, when you spend hope.

And this is true of all the attributes with regard to skills: when rolling skills, it doesn't matter how strong, smart, or resilient you are, unless you spend hope.