Success rate of skill checks

[JoeArcher]

When you get 3+ skill dice, it becomes increasingly hard to fail a check at TN 14. It's not unusual for RPGs to have the issue with things either being too hard at low ranks or too easy at high ranks. Of course opposed checks against matched NPCs will be better balanced.

I just think a skill level from 1-4 would have been more sensible, but any views on this from veteran LMs who have had very experienced characters in their gaming group?

on four dice the average is 14 even without the feat die.

How about journeys... don't they become trivial and the whole travelling system almost pointless if succes is almost certain? And hope will become increasingly insignificant in relation to checks.

Combat can be balanced easily because of parry etc., so that's not really much of an issue.

[Seosaidh]

Disclaimer: I have never actually played TOR, only read the rules. (I'm hoping to play soon, and even LM).

As far as journies go, in the revised rules, you can modify the TN of the journey rolls based on the lands that the players are travelling through. The TNs are:
Free Lands: 12
Border Lands: 14
Wild Lands: 16
Shadow Lands: 18
Dark Lands: 20

This could be one way of dealing with the skills; however, it doesn't address the larger question. I would guess that combat is more or less ok (as per your statements), journies can be scaled with where the heroes are travelling, encounters can have increased TNs (if appropriate given company composition), etc. I'll leave it to others to debate the pros and cons of TOR's probability curve (I seem to remember seeing a forum thread about that, maybe I'll go find it), as I haven't had much experience with the game.

[Stormcrow]

Someone with four or more success dice in a skill should naturally be succeeding frequently at actions that are considered "moderate" for someone with three dice.

Someone that skilled should be taking on actions with a higher difficulty if he wants to be challenged. Wandering around the Vale of Anduin too easy? Try a trip to the Mountains of Mirkwood!

Remember, three success dice in a skill represents a solid, professional level of skill. Any more dice and they are considered experts.

[Hermes Serpent]

Now look at the cost to raise Travel from 0 to 4 ranks. To save you looking it up it's 40 APs
Beornings, Elves and Woodmen start out at zero Travel unless you spend starting points for a rank. Hobbits start with 1 and Bardings and Lakemen 2 ranks. Only Dwarves start out with decent ranks in Travel. That makes it likely those characters not Dwarves will take a lot of adventuring, maybe 3 years worth, at a maximum of about 12 AP per Adventuring Phase to find Travel easy. That doesn't take into account spending AP on anything else.

I suggest both of you (Seosaidh and JoeArcher) avoid going down the road that many have trod before you and read the back threads of the forums, the old forums and run/play a game or two. That way you won't make the mistake of criticising mechanisms that have been playtested and discussed for a long period of time without understanding why the rules are written that way.

[Seosaidh]

Hermes, good point about the number of APs it takes to level up Travel. That hadn't occurred to me.

I definitely need to play some before I can really criticize the rules. I actually don't really have a criticism, I was simply pointing out that according to the revised rules, you can modify the TN for journeys according to a table. The rules also mention modifying TNs for encounters based on circumstances. In fact, the Marsh Bell scenario explicitly states that the TN for Gloin is 14 for a single spokesman, but 16 if the entire company tries to introduce themselves (the reason being that Gloin is impatient). Maybe I'll actually take the plunge and download the old forums and browse them. It would give me another thing to do in the evening.

[JoeArcher]

I understand it will take a while, but for elves, they can reach 3+ in several skills and no matter what the cost is, the raw propability will still be an issue. The solution can be to retire characters who reach 4+ of course. At 5 skill ranks, most checks will simply be pointless with an average around 23. On top of this you have rerolls from abilities and other different bonuses.

It's the usual problem for many rpgs. The system has a good balance with inexperienced to intermediate characters.

The cost to raise a skill from 2 to 6 is only 54 advancement points for a favorite skill, which takes 6 fellowship phases if you get 9 advancement points before every fellowship phase.

I don't like that the cost is the only balancing factor, so you're left with balancing this by making sure players don't reach those levels. It's like giving players the opportunity for lots of awesome abilities, but having to balance the game, by making sure they never get them

[Hermes Serpent]

Seosaidh, It's certainly worth the effort as they unzip into individual threads so you can read them with your browser. There is a huge amount of discussion that covers ground that is often rehashed by newer players and that can be frustrating for longer term players who have to either bite their tongues or post a link to previous discussions. You also get commentary by the authors about certain questions giving you insight into why the rules do what they do. The authors also took a lot of feedback into consideration which you see in the new, fresh, reissue of the rules as one volume (a common complaint in the first months of the discussions was the two volume format and the poor indexing).

[Blubbo Baggins]

I understand it will take a while, but for elves, they can reach 3+ in several skills and no matter what the cost is, the raw propability will still be an issue. The solution can be to retire characters who reach 4+ of course. At 5 skill ranks, most checks will simply be pointless with an average around 23. On top of this you have rerolls from abilities and other different bonuses.

It's the usual problem for many rpgs. The system has a good balance with inexperienced to intermediate characters.

The cost to raise a skill from 2 to 6 is only 54 advancement points for a favorite skill, which takes 6 fellowship phases if you get 9 advancement points before every fellowship phase.

Please consider these factors:

1) 6 fellowship phases mean you have gone on 6 adventures. An adventure is usually somewhere between 3-4 sessions (2 hours each). So a minimum of 6 hours, and if you include time for fellowship phase, add another hour. In total one adventure might be a minimum of 7 hours long, and if you've played 6 of them, you're looking at a minimum of 42 hours (real time). That amount of play time could take a year of real time to complete (2 hours every other week). Its OK if a PC is very skilled at one thing if you've been playing for a year!

2) If a player spends ALL of their advancement points on a single skill, they will be amazing at that skill, and not very good at many others. Sure, they will auto-pass that particular check, and usually with a great or even extraordinary success, but they will still struggle with every other test.
An LM can easily balance players with powerful skills by using or creating adventures that test characters in many different ways. That is why a fellowship is strong, because each pc can take a different role. Nevertheless, there will still be failures because pcs cannot be good at everything.

3) The design of this game was well thought-out. Remember the Fate Die! In some circumstances (like a Travel or Corruption test) it doesn't matter how skilled you are - if you roll an Eye, bad things happen! The Fate Die is going to affect pcs throughout the whole game. (The reverse is true, no matter how terrible a pc is at a skill, there is a chance they can still pass the test!).

4) Adding further to the good design, as you go up in skill, especially after 3 ranks, you are no longer focusing on improving your chances to pass the test. Instead you are increasing your chances of having a higher level of success - that is, a great or extraordinary success. The % increase to succeed that a pc gets going from 4 to 5 ranks, or especially from 5 to 6 ranks, is NOT worth the the cost in Advancement points (or XP for weapons).
If succeeding was all you were trying to do, you might likely stop at 4 ranks, and depend on Hope for those Daunting tests. But there are often many benefits to achieving a higher degree of success, and there is plenty of incentive to increase further. And, the more powerful adversaries usually have abilities that, you need a great or extraordinary success to avoid those bad things happening. (Take a look at "Thing of Terror" or Raenar from TfW).

5) Hope is THE balancing factor, if as an LM you allow the game to be played as designed. In most situations, the only way to replenish Hope is via the Fellowship pool (or, if your Fellowship Focus happens to come out of an adventure unscathed, or if you spend XP on the Confidence Virtue). A lot of LMs and Players are afraid of the slowly dwindling pool of Hope. But that is the POINT in this game. As you become more skilled, the less you depend on Hope. It's a good thing, too, because players should ever-so-slowly have less and less of it to spend. Spending Hope needs to become a more critical thing as time passes, because you are able to pass several checks without it.

6) There is a built-in cap on skills, and Wisdom and Valour - 6. This means that, unlike OTHER rpgs we all know, PCs aren't inherently more powerful than adversaries from the get-go, and just continue to outpace adversaries, and there is no way to create a real challenge (I'm looking at you, 4e).

7) Finally, I have not played Pendragon, but I know TOR takes a lot of inspiration from it. And like Pendragon, TOR is ultimately made to be played generationally. Your characters are meant to get old, lose Hope and retire, or die in battle or in an adventure. They are meant to pass on some of their experience and learning and treasures to the next hero, likely a son or daughter, who will take up their mantle. Characters that are highly experienced should also have some permanent shadow. The game is designed in such a way that Shadow is a part of a character. It adds flavor and depth to your character and to the story. PCs aren't just overcoming lots of orcs, but the Shadow that is creeping inside their own hearts as well. I might contend that, if a PC has 6 ranks in a skill but isn't struggling with Shadow (or low Hope), then either the game isn't being played right, or the PCs are wandering around safe areas only.

Anyway, that is a long-winded answer, but I hope it addresses your concerns. PCs who are more powerful are going to need a higher challenge. At the same time, an LM should feel free to continue to reward the PCs and allow them to increase in skill. Just set up more situations where Hope is needed, or where Shadow can be gained. Get them Veterans ready to retire!

[Hermes Serpent]

@Blubbo Baggins, good points there. Most of the contentious issues that have been raised recently are down to a number of new owners of the book who have acquired the game, possibly read their way through the book and now think that they know everything about the game without having rolled dice in anger.

At least one would hope that most of the newer players have the decency to read the forums and ask questions to clear things up rather than taking an all-knowing stance that just demonstrates how little they do know.

Everyone here is only too happy to answer questions asked in good faith even if they've been asked multiple times before. Making confrontational posts concerning game design does not make for a pleasant environment on the forums and I'd guess that if the C7 staffer's were not recently back from Gencon with jetlag and fatigue from meetings plus running a Kickstarter on top of getting material through the development process we might see them exerting a heavier moderating hand.

[Rocmistro]

Joe:

While you are considering the gameplay of 4+ success dice in a skill, are you aware that invoking a trait allows for an autosuccess?

I am active in 6 separate TOR Games over the 2.5 years; I'm a player in 4 and I Loremaster 2 (one on hiatus). One might think "Autosuccess by invoking traits and not rolling? That will ruin the game". It does not.

By virute of the Feat die, this game awards generalizing at least as much as specializing. Characters that want to automatically succeed at a skill will find a way to invoke a trait rather than pump up a common skill to 5 or 6, when they could, for the same AP, increase 3 other skills to 2 or 3 for the same price.