Revised Armour House Rules

[Rich H]

Now I just need to work out how to revise the rules for Mithril and other magical armour qualities from the Rivendell book to fit this new system.

... And consider Cunning Make also.

You'll need to redefine War Gear and Travelling Gear if you use there house rules as in the RAW there is a delineation between the two; with your rules your changing that.

Not sure I'd increase Travel TNs due to armour *and* add their Encumbrance to Travel Gear upon a failed test as well. Personally I'd go with the former, which is incidentally how I did it too and rather than lower Encumbrance I gave heavier armour Damage Reduction.

[Corvo]

Hi Tantavalist!

I find your house rule is very nice, and clever. Not tested it obviously, but looks like it can model the source material.
Like RichH I don't think you need to add a malus to the tn.

That said, in my campaign I added armour reduction and malus to travel tn :p
My Dalish fellowship -all 4 or 5 die armour- are hiking in the Mountains of Mirkwood right now (tn20+4/5 !),
and they are all about "if the Werewolf don't kill us our chainmails will..."

[Tantavalist]

I suspect I'll keep the TN increase for the simple reason that it means nobody will try to travel through anything but the easiest terrain wearing heavy armour. The Fellowship of the Ring was heading out across the Misty Mountains in winter- and Gimli was the only one wearing armour (maybe I'll also house rule the Dwarven cultural trait to reduce the fatigue of armour worn with this system).

The purpose of this system is to make sure that putting on a full set of armour the day of a major battle (like everyone does in the books) makes just as much sense as taking that armour off before going on a long journey. It's not meant to make going into the Mountains of Mirkwood wearing 4-5 dice of armour a sensible option. I really like the fact that TOR makes wearing the heaviest armour all the time a bad thing- I just wanted to change things so that sometimes it isn't a bad idea, which in the base rules it was.

[Corvo]

I suspect I'll keep the TN increase for the simple reason that it means nobody will try to travel through anything but the easiest terrain wearing heavy armour. The Fellowship of the Ring was heading out across the Misty Mountains in winter- and Gimli was the only one wearing armour (maybe I'll also house rule the Dwarven cultural trait to reduce the fatigue of armour worn with this system).

The purpose of this system is to make sure that putting on a full set of armour the day of a major battle (like everyone does in the books) makes just as much sense as taking that armour off before going on a long journey. It's not meant to make going into the Mountains of Mirkwood wearing 4-5 dice of armour a sensible option. I really like the fact that TOR makes wearing the heaviest armour all the time a bad thing- I just wanted to change things so that sometimes it isn't a bad idea, which in the base rules it was.

Of course, your house rule is like you want it to be.

I was just thinking that TN20 isn't a breeze. Even a 2-die armour is gonna have tn 22 in the Mountains of Mirkwood, and in fall every failed roll is +5 fatigue (unless I read your rules wrongly). Doing some math in my mind, I think that even at "legendary" skill 5 you fail some 40% of the time. At skill 4, it's really hard.
Now that I think about it, I like it

About taking off armour: save Gimli, the Fellowship of The Ring eschewed armour while travelling... but in TOR 1 attack every 12 is an automatic hit and a wounding blow. I think that in TOR you need some more armour than in the books.

[Tantavalist]

Keep in mind that the Encumberance value of armour is much lower in this version, meaning that characters will have lower starting Fatigue ratings. A character has to fail three travel rolls to be in the same situation as they would be when setting out in the RAW.

Also- the bonus to the weight of Travelling Gear is the armour's ENC rating. Therefore, 2-dice armour would only be giving a +2 to fatigue, or 4 fatigue total if not travelling during winter. It all scales. With a decent Travel skill and high Endurance rating, then 2-dice armour should be perfectly fine for an experienced traveller in most terrains.

[Glorelendil]

I still think you want to tweak dwarves a little bit. The idea of their blessing is to make it easier for them to lug around heavy armor. If they're getting up to 8 Fatigue for failing one roll (Winter gear, Mail Hauberk) then a single failed roll and the cultural blessing is used up.

[Tantavalist]

So, having created some sample characters and then run them through a sample journey and combat I've decided that the rules largely work as intended the way they are- Encumberance equal to dice of protection which adds to both Travel Gear weight and the TN of travel rolls.

Armour qualities will work as follows:-

Cunning Make reduces the travel TN by one point.
Ancient Cunning Make reduces travel TN by two points.
Mithril Armour reduces the travel TN by three points.

If the travel TN for armour is reduced to zero, then any further reductions from the above qualities reduce its Encumberance instead.

As for the Dwarven cultural ability- having read some fan supplements with house rules, I'm considering leaving it as is. There are house rules for adding vambraces and greaves which, like helms, add armour bonuses for increased ENC. Dwarves will be able to use their ability to add these on top of their armour.

One thing that has occurred to me with Dwarves was significant that I thought I'd start a seperate thread concerning it here...

[Corvo]

As already said, the more I think about it, the more I like it.
I'm going to propose it to my players.

Edit: do you think you need to change the rule for recovering from travel fatigue? RAW it's 1 point of fatigue per day of rest (page 159 of the Revised Edition)

[Yepesnopes]

I like the idea a lot. I have the feeling it may need some tweaking, for example, even a 1d or 2d armour is adding +1 and +2 to the travel TN respectively, which I find a lot, but it is just a feeling. The general idea is good.

[Falenthal]

I like the idea a lot. I have the feeling it may need some tweaking, for example, even a 1d or 2d armour is adding +1 and +2 to the travel TN respectively, which I find a lot, but it is just a feeling. The general idea is good.

Yeah, that's right.
I think that the added difficulty should be Protection Dice -2 (or -1, depending on liking).

This way, the leather armors don't give any penalty (although they already add to the Fatigue), and the chains give +1/+2/+3 respectively.