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A couple of quick questions is all I have for you.

If I'm not mistaken, the rules for healing a dying character say to make a healing check to not die. I'm assuming the target number for that is 14? I feel this is a little low, and more variance should be added to the roll. The group's "healer" has 3 points in healing, is favored in the skill, and has leechcraft. So a TN 14 roll is not very dramatic. "Average" roll for him would be (assuming you count the feat die as a 5 average) 5+3+3+3, which is 14. If he's willing to spend a point of hope it's basically a guarantee. We're relatively early into the campaign, so as the characters spend advancement points, this should only grow easier. I was thinking of house ruling healing from dying (and injuries for that matter) as a 10 or 12 (maybe even an 8) +Attribute Level of the creature that inflicted the blow. So, for example, if they were wounded by a troll with an Att level of 7, the TN to heal that would be 17 (or 19 depending on if you went with either the 10 or 12 base). Is this too harsh? I don't want to "try" to kill the PC's, but I feel a flat 14 is a little easy. I think if I character is about to die, it's a dramatic moment, so a slightly more difficult roll should be needed to save him. Plus, the "Stronger" a creature, the higher its ATT level, meaning a blow from it could cause a more grievous wound.

My other major question is about Bouts of Madness. I have 2 PC's whom are dangerously close to being miserable, and I'm wondering what sort of bouts of madness a character could suffer from. If I remember the book says to maybe center the bout around either their shadow weakness or the type of roll their got the Eye on, but I was wanting some ideas on what you guys may have done (or had happen) when suffering a bout.

If you have leechcraft, you need not even roll (unless you want to earn an AP check) - you can, and my players would, use the Specialty for the automatic success, especially since the result of blowing it is death of a character.

Especially appropriate when only AP is to gain when rolling.

aramis wrote:If you have leechcraft, you need not even roll (unless you want to earn an AP check) - you can, and my players would, use the Specialty for the automatic success, especially since the result of blowing it is death of a character.(...)

Well, on the other hand:
AB, page 95 "The Loremaster may agree with a Trait invocation to speed up play, especially if failing at the roll would not lead to dramatically relevant consequences".

About the idea of raising the tn for such rolls: I think it can be done, yet don't be too eager to gamble the life of your heroes!
In my group, such rolls occurred when all the fellowship was tired from a battle, and I have seen rolls of 3-3-3 (zero) :p

I've not had anyone close to suffering a bout of madness. They've been very careful to remove Shadow at Fellowship phases and none of them have the Dwarven Stiff Neck Virtue to want to keep Shadow scores high.

The usual thing is to have a Treasure Hunter imagine piles of gold behind every tree for example. Other LM may have something useful for you though.

In regards to bouts of madness it's best to judge the situation, you don't always need to fit the Bout to the player's Calling if it's more dramatic to fit it to the scene at hand. I had one player suffer two bouts within one adventure! It was during the last adventure in the Tales from Wilderland book, I won't post spoilers.

It was at the end of the adventure, they had defeated their enemies, and one of my Dwarf players was Miserable. They had seen one of their members fall in battle, he wasn't dead but they didn't know for sure, and the archer of the group was missing too, he had been firing from a location higher up so they didn't see him during the battle. The Hobbit archer had been knocked unconscious, and when the other party members went to his last known location he was gone, but they realised he had been dragged away by something.

So they set off in search of him, and the Miserable Dwarf rolled a Sauron when they were trying to get around some rubble blocking a stairway. I didn't give him his Bout of Madness straight away. They managed to catch up with a Goblin who was dragging their friend away, a very good spear throw by the Beorning player killed the Goblin and they rushed to see the state of their friend. The Beorning had a little Healing and tried to check over his friend but he failed so couldn't say for sure if he was dead or not.

That was when I gave the Dwarf his Bout of Madness. I didn't link it to his Calling, which is Scholar, as it was more appropriate for him to react to seeing his companion, to his knowledge, lying dead at his feet. So rather than help the Beorning carry him back to their other friend, I had the Dwarf be very depressed and just decide to give up and start walking away, not listening to anything his friend was saying. After a time I had the Dwarf come back to his senses and he returned to the group, finding that all were alive if badly beaten. It made for some tense and emotional roleplaying as the Beorning grudgingly accepted his return after seemingly abandoning everyone.

On the Journey home, the Dwarf was still Miserable, as he only had one Hope Point left, and his now one permanent Shadow Point. Unfortunately he rolled another Sauron during the return journey and had another Bout of Madness. I tied this Bout more to his Calling as, for the remainder of the Journey, the Dwarf became very withdrawn from the group, he didn't contribute to anything and just kept looking over an old book that they had been given. The rest of the group were annoyed as nothing they could do would bring him out of his behaviour.

Fortunately the adventure was over very quickly and everyone returned home for their Fellowship phase, the Miserable Dwarf was able to contemplate and recover from the gruelling adventure. He was able to regain a number of Hope, with generous allowance of being able to draw from the Fellowship Pool, and with attending the Beorning's wedding the following Spring, he was more or less back to his normal self.

Of course now I have two negative Traits I can call on in their future adventures, and with the stirring darkness to the East, the Dwarf will be starting to have a few disturbing dreams as they move forward into the Darkening of Mirkwood Campaign.