Armour house rule

[Michebugio]

I’m not sure what you mean. Do your players have trouble remembering their armour’s protection ratings for when an orc or a spider roll’s their weapon’s Edge number? This isn’t any different, except you’re not making a skill check. Every 6 you roll knocks off 1 point of damage. If you roll a rune or an eye, something good or bad happens.

Well, the 1 point reduction for each Tengwar isn't the hard part. The hard part is:

Michebugio's player: "so, I got 2 Tengwars, it's 2 points off. Am I wearing Leather or Mail? Ok, Mail: +1 DR on top. That makes 3 points of damage reduction. Then what did I just score on the Feat dice? Oh, damn: it was an Eye. Screw that 3 points, I didn't reduce anything. Oh wait! Did I score any 1s with the Success dices? Too late: I already grabbed them, can't remember which were the scores, except the 2 Ts! Wait, maybe there was a 1. Yes, definitely: so what happens? Ok, I also get knocked back and now my mail rolls 1 dice less. Got it. No, wait: what does it mean 'knocked back'? And where do I write the armor damage on my character sheet?"

*On the next turn, an orc hits him*

Michebugio's player: "Ok, I want to reduce damage again. Could you explain me what do I have to roll? From the start, please".

Michebugio: *knocks his head against the wall*

[Glorelendil]

Ok, I added Evening's complicated rule from page 15. (It may be buggy; please check it out.)

First I ran a Barding with Great Spear: 2 vs an Orc Guard.
No armor: 32.2% win
Mail Shirt: 35.7% win
Mail Shirt w/Evenings Rule: 38.9% win
Maul Hauberk: 35.7% win (interesting that it's the same as Mail Shirt)
Maul Hauberk w/Evenings Rule: 40.1% win

I'm actually a little puzzled because usually Hauberk (RAW) is so much worse than mail shirt. Maybe somebody else can poke at this a little bit.

In coding up Evening's rule I had three observations:
1) As I observed before, it's complicated, and the code reflected this (far more lines of code than any other house rule).
2) As written, it's the only rule in the game where you roll without a TN.
3) Mail is already "better" than leather for having more dice; is the additional +1 really needed?

If folks want to brainstorm on a simplified version of Evening's rule I will update it.

[zedturtle]

I guess you mean the Injury rating

Yes, Yes I did.

Whoa! A Hauberk has a 96% of success against TN 14, that means 96% of the times your character won't get a scratch! Way too much IMHO, even if Endurance loss is halved instead of completely avoided!

Hmmm... I get what you're saying, but I think people's perception of probabilities has to come into play as well. When you fail (or roll an Eye) you loose this benefit for the rest of the adventure. So you'd better want it.

And a broken armor, in your rule, simply stops absorbing impacts, but I guess it is implied that Protection Tests to avoid wounds work just fine. I simply see no real drawbacks here.

Well the drawback is the 20 Endurance that you paid for this armour that works 88% of the time. Of course, making damaged armour unable to offer protection (meaning it doesn't contribute to the roll, so Protection Test would be Feat Die + Helm) would be a big drawback.

Note: I'm not claiming this as a perfect solution or anything, I'm just trying to come up with something that has a minimum of book-keeping and is as close to the RAW as possible while still being balanced.

[mogul76]

I have not read all the posts in this very long thread and perhaps the following variant of the Absorb Impact house rule has already been suggested:

When a companion takes a hit, he can choose to reduce the resulting Endurance loss by the armour's number of Protection dice. The armour's gets damaged in the process and its Protection score is decreased by 1d each time this effect is triggered. If the hero spends one point of Hope, he can invoke a Body Attribute bonus to the number of absorbed damage points. Once the armour's Protection value drops to 0, it cannot absorb any further Endurance loss until it is repaired.

Armour is repaired in the Fellowship phase. The capability to repair damaged armour depends on the hero's Standard of Living (Poor for a Leather Shirt, Frugal for a Leather Corslet, Martial for a Mail Shirt, Prosperous for a Coat of Mail and Rich for a Mail Hauberk). If the character succeeds a Craft test (TN 14) or possesses an appropriate Trait such as Smith-craft, he can repair the armour himself, reducing the required Standard of Living by one level (or 2 levels/3 levels if he scores a great success/an extraordinary success).

I also would like to refer to my "Armour-seasoned" house rule, which is described here: viewtopic.php?p=12226

Moreover, I'm thinking about reducing a weapon's Edge rating by one level if a character/creature scores a great success on an attack roll and by two points if an extraordinary success is achieved, thereby increasing the usefulness of heavy armour even more.

[Corvo]

There are a lot of houserules being proposed and tested in this thread. This is fine, 'cause I was looking for a thorough discussion about the armour problem.
Now, most of these houserules bear the stigma of, well, being houserules. You know, too complicated to gain wide acceptance, too inelegant to fit the other rules, etc.
My extensive houseruling got this stigma. Ablative armour too, and modified knockback.

Yepesnope's rule is the only one different about this. Because it's not a new rule, just an adjustment on the existing ones. I think that -so far- it's the only solution to the armour problem that can gain wide acceptance.

I tried it a lot. The results are very good. Can anyone else test it? Comment on it? See if there are other problems?

Elfcrusher's simulator told us that this game got a mechanical fault. No one was able to disprove the simulator. Yepesnopes rule can solve the problem without changing the rules. Let's try it.

The rule is indexed at page 10 (100th post).
I copy-pasted it at page 11.
I posted test results at page 13 and 14.

[mogul76]

Now, most of these houserules bear the stigma of, well, being houserules. You know, too complicated to gain wide acceptance, too inelegant to fit the other rules, etc.

Good morning, Corvo! I normally avoid house rules in RPG's (and other games as a matter of fact). However, I also think that TOR is both a flexible and versatile system (with some issues, something which is very common in 1st-edition rule sets) which almost "screams" to be house-ruled (there must be a reason why so many alterations to the RAW are being discussed in these forums ).

That's why we have already seen four (more or less official) variations of the journey rules (three of which were published in Francesco Nepitello's blog and one that is described in Hobbit Tales).

Moreover, I also believe that many of the suggested house rules (including my version of "Absorb Impact") are not more complicated or less elegant than some of the official mechanics such as the Knockback or the Remove Helm rules.

The issues I have Yepesnopes' suggestion are a) its potential significant impact on the game (piercing blows i.e. wounds occur much more frequently) and b) the fact that player characters get penalised.

[Corvo]

Hi Mogul76,

Thank you for chiming in
I'm not against house rules, on the contrary. I house ruled the hell out of my game!
But maybe we have the chance to go beyond our houses: it had been a long thread, and I repeatedly intervened to steer the discussion in that direction (this is the reason I opened a thread of my own instead of writing on the many others).

About your reservations on Yepesnopes rule:
-yes, wounding blows becomes more common. And that is the rationale. Armour is a drag because wounds don't occur often enough to warrant it. And axes had been demonstrated being the worst weapons (compared to all) exactly because their edge is too high.
-Heroes being penalized? Are you sure? My tests yeld a different result.
Heroes are penalized if they go around naked. Heroes are advantaged if they wield axes and swords, for example.

[mogul76]

Hello again,

Yes, I believe that the companions are pensalised (but I can't be sure until intensively playtested).

Reasons:

- Oftentimes they are outnumbered.
- The creatures most commonly encountered have a rather low Endurance rating and are eliminated when this value drops to 0 (the most frequent reason for NPC death).

Axes indeed have a lower Edge rating, but their Injury score is higher.

I also hope that the revised edition of TOR will adress the most problematic issues which are being discussed in the forums: heavy armour; the defensive stance being the only viable option, once the characters have a weapon skill of 4 or higher; the chance of inflicting a piercing blow not increasing with higher weapon skills; etc.

[Elmoth]

Regarding a post a few pages back about "no armor being the best way to go" because "characters are defeated by endurance loss", I have to say that this is not the case in my troupe.

My troupe has tended to specialize in Wits 5+ characters in order to have good defense scores (generally 8-9 being common). Most of the time that means that they also adopt positions that max out on their defences, and so, are only hit on a Sauron rune by 95% of their opponents. That means that each hit they suffer *is* a wounding hit while normal endurance is irrelevant (they do not suffer endurance loss during combat due to enemy hits). Under those circumstances their armor is paramount to them and 3D has become quite common.

Just FYI

I also hope that the revised edition of TOR will adress the most problematic issues which are being discussed in the forums: heavy armour; the defensive stance being the only viable option, once the characters have a weapon skill of 4 or higher; the chance of inflicting a piercing blow not increasing with higher weapon skills; etc.

I think TOR makes an amazing job at capturing the mood (best ME RPG in that area ever), but quite a lousy job in the rules department, as the many HR discussed in these forums show. I would not hold my breath regarding this last point.

Cheers,
Xavi

[Rich H]

I think TOR makes an amazing job at capturing the mood (best ME RPG in that area ever)...

And the rule system plays a key part in capturing such a mood.

... but quite a lousy job in the rules department, as the many HR discussed in these forums show.

House rules don't necessarily mean the rules are lousy just that the system as built allows for tinkering and shaping them to particular ways of playing and players are confident enough to make those changes for often numerous reasons (eg, clear/unobscured maths, obvious impacts to the system, enthusiasm for the rule set, etc). My experience of rules systems that I think have lousy systems, and I won't name them as it wouldn't add value, are that I simply walk away from them - not bothering with house rules at all.