Unbalance uses for Body, Heart and Wits

[buddhax]

Why Heart is used to set initial Endurance? I have the impression that Body is undervalued.

Heart used for: initial Endurance, initial Hope, Corruption, Fear, recovering/healing.
Body: Damage, Protection.
Wits: Parry and Initiative.

I think Body should go as Base Value for Endurance. Make sense. Sadly, I don't know how to balance Wits.

[Glorelendil]

While certainly there's an argument for Body, Heart is at least as good of a candidate. Think of the cultural base value representing the physical component of endurance, and the smaller Heart component representing mental toughness.

[Glorelendil]

Oh, and as for how often Body gets used, there may be fewer categories, but they occur vastly more often.

[Hermes Serpent]

You'd also need to look at the skill distribution for each Attribute to see what other effects might alter by changing things about.
Body deals with Awe, Athletics, Awareness, Explore, Song and Craft.
Heart deals with Inspire, Travel, Insight, Healing, Courtesy and Battle.
Wits deals with Persuade, Stealth, Search, Hunting, Riddle and Lore.

I think that the Attributes generally fit the skills they are associated with pretty well especially when you check the definitions of each skill.

Now I don't keep a record of skill usage over time but I'm prepared to bet that some skills; Travel, Awareness, Persuade for example, get used a lot more than others. When checking the skill/advancement point matrix we can see that the various skills aren't listed alphabetically but in a designed sequence. As far as I can see the most frequently used skills do not appear in the same skill group lines as other commonly used skills. That presumably is to allow each skill group to get a chance of being used and an AP acquired. So adjusting the spread of Attributes or even applying the bonus 1,2 or 3 to maximise one Attribute might give you a character that is one-dimensional in that the character is good at one set(column) of skills to the detriment of other skills and therefore less useful in a group.

As One Ring is built around a group of heroes the character generation process really needs to keep an eye on all the aspects of the character and not just how mega they may be at one task. There's little point in building a Woodman/Sword-day counsellor who is great at Heart or Wits skills with a 3,8,9 Attribute spread but can't run away (Athletics) or hit anything hard (Damage Bonus).

[JoeArcher]

Body: Your damage rating can count for a lot, so it's very powerful. Being able to add it to your protection check is equally powerful, if not more so.
Wits: Parry is amazing. Having 6 parry instead of 2 for instance is a huge difference. What do you mean with initiative? Isn't it just the defender who has the initiative?

The brilliant part of this is the balance. ALL three stats are needed for combat. If you change endurance to be based off body you completely ruin this sweet balance. As a warrior you need all three and min/maxing has it's consequences. If body was used to determine endurance you would see warriors simply skip heart to maximize their damage, endurance and parry. Bad, bad idea.

Body: Damage
Heart: Endurance
Wits: Parry

That is brilliant. Comming from WFRP where I see warriors just min maxing to have 2 high stats and 4 low stats, I really dislike min/maxing with a passion. This system is so simple, elegant and well thought out.

Every type of character needs every stat... changing that balance is a mistake in my opinion.

[buddhax]

Regarding the distribution of Test based on the skills, no doubt Travel is by far the most used and is a Heart skill.

Protection is important, no doubt, but much less used than your Endurance and you count with your Armor to improve that.

[Curulon]

I use Rich H's house rule version of Endurance where Body is the key stat and not Heart, and it doesn't really effect the balance at all because Heart is still used for Hope. And, as Hope is vastly imporant to not just combat, a player who just dumps Heart is going to be sorely disappointed when they have such little Hope (especially if playing something that has a limitation, like a Ranger).

[Hermes Serpent]

Wits: Parry is amazing. Having 6 parry instead of 2 for instance is a huge difference. What do you mean with initiative? Isn't it just the defender who has the initiative?

He's talking about the sequence in which characters fight. Forward, Open, Defensive, Rearward and in each Stance Highest to Lowest Wits. This ties into the character design because if you design a character to be always fighting in Defensive they can have high Parry to avoid being hit but can easily Protect a companion in another CC stance. So they don't necessarily need a high Attack skill or a high armour value. If you design a character to deal lots of damage they don't need high wits to go first in any stance but can add on the armour and stay in Forward stance. When you have a few games under your belt you'll see these intertwined design decisions show up in combat, travel and encounters.

[JoeArcher]

Wits: Parry is amazing. Having 6 parry instead of 2 for instance is a huge difference. What do you mean with initiative? Isn't it just the defender who has the initiative?

He's talking about the sequence in which characters fight. Forward, Open, Defensive, Rearward and in each Stance Highest to Lowest Wits. This ties into the character design because if you design a character to be always fighting in Defensive they can have high Parry to avoid being hit but can easily Protect a companion in another CC stance. So they don't necessarily need a high Attack skill or a high armour value. If you design a character to deal lots of damage they don't need high wits to go first in any stance but can add on the armour and stay in Forward stance. When you have a few games under your belt you'll see these intertwined design decisions show up in combat, travel and encounters.

Ahh I see. Yes of course wits solves ties between players.

[Morgoth]

I agree that Body is the least used attribute, even in combat. And while I do think that all attributes should be useful in combat, I think Body should be more important, because it's not useful in much else.

Oh, and as for how often Body gets used, there may be fewer categories, but they occur vastly more often.

I respectfully disagree. Body is used several times each combat. Wits (parry) is used several times each round in combat. Using your combat simulator (which is awesome btw), it seems like Wits is almost always more important in combat, and mostly by a large margin. Heart and Body are pretty close in importance. However Heart has plenty of uses outside of combat and Body has very few.