Quick Game Report

[Michebugio]

Great Size opponents are formidable adversaries indeed. But my group put down 3 Trolls during the campaign, and it never was a big deal: the longbow-wielding Man of the Lake has now the Trollkiller eponymous, since it always was him to end combat either with a Called Shot or a Prepared Shot. Maybe I was a bit unlucky with my Protection tests, but that damn longbow has always been pretty lethal.

However, the revised rules polished a lot the Rally Comrades and Intimidate Foe combat options, to the point that a character focused on one (or both) of these option can now really shine. I think this may be now a key factor during combat.

In my group, the Woodman is now pumping up Song to maximize the effects of Staunching Song and Rally Comrades. At 3 points in that skill, he has already hugely increased the group survivability.

[Andrew]

Oh! So, basically, our GM was unintentionally cutting us all kinds of slack.

Yeh, you guys should have all died long ago

[Glorelendil]

Actually it's 'jamb' and although you're the carpenter it is, I believe, normally the piece of wood that stops a door swinging all the way past the upright frame of the door.

Yeah, you're right. Although I am (or was) a furniture-maker, not a finish carpenter.

[Murcushio]

Great Size opponents are formidable adversaries indeed. But my group put down 3 Trolls during the campaign, and it never was a big deal: the longbow-wielding Man of the Lake has now the Trollkiller eponymous, since it always was him to end combat either with a Called Shot or a Prepared Shot.

Just to make sure my group doesn't continue to be dumb... making a Called Shot with a bow or spear has the potential to double-Pierce, right? That's how we've been interpreting the rules, as I believe the Called Shot rules specifically say you get the benefit of the Called Shot on top of anything else that the roll would normally produce, so long as the success was Great or Extraordinary. so if you hit the shot and hit your Edge rating, you generate two instances of Piercing, not just one.

However, the revised rules polished a lot the Rally Comrades and Intimidate Foe combat options, to the point that a character focused on one (or both) of these option can now really shine. I think this may be now a key factor during combat.

Even before the buff, I was using Intimidate Foe an awful, awful lot. The very first non-trivial monster our GM threw at us was a single Great Spider (this is before we'd so much as done a single Fellowship phase, group of starting characters) and nearly everyone in the group had stated with Valour 1, so our GM was figuring that Strike Fear would really jack us up and make for an epic "first boss" fight.

Until I rushed forward on the first round and rolled an extraordinary success on my Intimidate Foe roll, sucking it completely dry of Hate.

Currently planning on making Awe my first common skill to go to four.

[Glorelendil]

Oh, wow. I was about to reply that you had it wrong, but re-reading the rules I think it pretty explicitly says you're right. Looks like double-pierce to me.

[Hermes Serpent]

Great Size opponents are formidable adversaries indeed. But my group put down 3 Trolls during the campaign, and it never was a big deal: the longbow-wielding Man of the Lake has now the Trollkiller eponymous, since it always was him to end combat either with a Called Shot or a Prepared Shot.

Just to make sure my group doesn't continue to be dumb... making a Called Shot with a bow or spear has the potential to double-Pierce, right? That's how we've been interpreting the rules, as I believe the Called Shot rules specifically say you get the benefit of the Called Shot on top of anything else that the roll would normally produce, so long as the success was Great or Extraordinary. so if you hit the shot and hit your Edge rating, you generate two instances of Piercing, not just one.

AFAIK. One Pierce not two. A Called Shot with bow or Spear needs a tengwar and a successful hit (TN12 plus parry) to get a Piercing Blow. A Prepared Shot gets the effect of a Called Shot but doesn't need the tengwar and the successful result, just a successful result. The extra turn of aiming balances out the need for a tengwar so giving a second Piercing Blow and forcing a second Protection test would be overkill (literally).

[Michebugio]

Murcushio is right, but I wouldn't allow a double Piercing strike in the same attack, regardless of what the rules say.

By the way, the successful Called Shot descriptions for Bows and Spears state the following:

"The attack resulted in a Piercing
blow, regardless of the outcome
of the Feat die."

The second phrase (in bold) could suggest that you should ignore any result of the Feat die, thus also those above the Edge score of the weapon, not allowing a double Piercing strike.

I guess that some more clarification is needed at this point

[Rocmistro]

Just to make sure my group doesn't continue to be dumb... making a Called Shot with a bow or spear has the potential to double-Pierce, right? That's how we've been interpreting the rules, as I believe the Called Shot rules specifically say you get the benefit of the Called Shot on top of anything else that the roll would normally produce, so long as the success was Great or Extraordinary. so if you hit the shot and hit your Edge rating, you generate two instances of Piercing, not just one.

I disagree with this interpretation. I don't think it was the designer's intent to allow 2 piercing blows to result from a single attack.

page 161 of the AB indicates: "In addition to causing the loss of Endurance points, any
successful attack may inflict a Piercing blow." ( pg 161) (emphasis mine)

also:

"If the Feat die result in the initial attack roll is equal to or higher than the Edge rating of the weapon, the attack resulted in a Piercing blow."

I realize it's nitpicky, but to support what I believe to be the designer's intent, I would argue that this statement restricts any given attack to be able to inflict a maximum of 1 piercing blow.

[Hermes Serpent]

The two quoted passages regarding 'a' piercing blow and ignoring the result of the Feat die seem to suggest that the intent of the RAW is that a successful Called Shot (rolling a tengwar and a success) generates a Piercing Blow. A Successful strike with an Edge on the Feat die also generates a Piercing Blow but as the Feat die is ignored except as a value of 0 to 10 on a Called Shot it can never generate a second Piercing Blow with a Called Shot.

A Prepared Shot automatically qualifies as a successful Called Shot but the text in the table calling for the Feat die to be ignored means the Prepared Shot cannot generate a double Piercing Blow either.

[Andrew]

"The attack resulted in a Piercing
blow, regardless of the outcome
of the Feat die."

The second phrase (in bold) could suggest that you should ignore any result of the Feat die, thus also those above the Edge score of the weapon, not allowing a double Piercing strike.

I think Michebugio is on the money - regardless of the outcome of the Feat die quite explicitly means any outcome of the Feat die, good or bad. You're guaranteed a Piercing Blow if you pull it off, but you don't get any bonus if you naturally rolled a Piercing Blow.