Character Optimization Guide

[bluejay]

Yes I believe you do not lose out on Valour spent. I think you're interpretation is right.

[Glorelendil]

What do people think of Woodland Bow? I've been going back and forth on it, from thinking it sucks to thinking it's great. It so hard to sim out because I'm not sure how you compare a free shot at the beginning of the fight to, for example, getting more Pierces. The simples way to model it is to assume that it increases your damage by 1/R, where R is the number of rounds the fight lasts. By that measure it ranges from decent to amazing, without even factoring in the high value of it being part of the volley (i.e., the 1/R damage bonus is more valuable up front than it would be spread out over the length of the fight).

Also, I updated Spearman's Shield in light of the comments about Parry and probability above: if you're using a Great Spear in Forward stance then the +1 is actually pretty handy. I'd probably even Reinforce it.

[Rocmistro]

Ok, I'm at a computer. Longer response:

First, for all of these considerations there's a probability consideration:
1) When the mechanic in question is based on a single die roll (e.g. Edge) then stacking a stat is great.
2) When the mechanic in question is based on a dice pool (e.g. Protection, Parry, Attack) then stacking a stat has diminishing returns.

So looking at, for example, the Reinforced quality, you will get the most benefit if your parry is already low. So when you say you get the most benefit if you're already a shield user, somewhat counterintuitively that actually isn't true. If you're already a shield user then your Parry is, on average, higher, so the +1 gives you less benefit.

For all of the qualities, their value depends on what stats you already have. I would probably never take a Reinforced Buckler for a Hobbit with Small Folk and Wits 6(9). Increasing total Parry from 10 to 11 is worth a fraction (in terms of number of attacks avoided) of what it would be for a Beorning.

Cunning Make is a curious one because, as you point out, dropping a point of Encumbrance might give you the buffer to increase your armor by 1D. But I don't think anybody has anything other than a guess as to what the optimal buffer is between Endurance and Fatigue. At best you can say that the narrower your buffer, the more value Cunning Make has.

I'm going to update my section on Qualities in light of these points.

(Oops mixed up Close Fitting and Cunning Make again. Fixed.)

Hrm. That's all an interesting perspective on using shields, but I'm not sure I understand the maths in terms of real-(fictional) world scenario. Let me break this down, partly for you, but mostly for me, to help me/us understand the train of thought.

1. The first decision is whether or not to use a shield. As I see it, there are 2 factors in this:
a. The encumbrance cost of carrying a shield.
b. The value of the chance of increased damage vs. the chance of increased defense.

For part 1a to be true, you need to have an endurance/fatigue margin that supports your build. We can analyze that all day, but in the end, let us say that there is a shield out there for every adventurer, if they want it.

For part 1b to profitable, the sum of combat related statistics, relative to a given hero, must outweigh the bonus protection provided by the shield that they are capable of using per 1a, above. Again, this can be analyzed all day, but can we at least agree that there are some extremes:

-a Beorning with a great spear and body rating of 7 who starts with it as a favored weapon and 2 skill ranks vs. a hobbit who starts with no 2 handed weapon skills and body rating of 2 or 3. In your example, it is true that the marginal bonus of carrying any shield is more profitable for the beorning, who goes from a wits parry of 2 or 3 to a shielded parry of between 3 and 6 depending on what he carries. Yes, he's getting anywhere from a 33% to 250% return on parry by choosing to be shielded, but he gives up a lot of damage potential to do so. But that's not the whole story because at the end of the day, even a parry score of 5 (wits 2 + great shield 3) is not a great parry score.

Thus, my defintion of optimization involves a maximum return on efficiency, true, but also a gross result that is useful and scales. A beorning taking a reinforced shield (of any type) offers great marginal return, but with a total parry of 4, who cares? He's still not going to be blocking any damage, especially at higher "levels" when all the Orcs have 2 or 3 favored weapon skills. And that reinforced buckler or small shield is good for the hobbit, despite his high parry from wits because....what else is he going to do with his offhand? He can't use a 2 handed weapon....by sinking 2 quality into a shield he gets a 3:1 return on parry to encumbrance. He could also do 1 quality on a buckler for a 2:1, but...I dunno, just doesn't seem worth it to me. So with 2 of his other 3 qualities, he'll pimp out his king's blade and take the injury TN+2; that's all he really needs for that weapon to work. Edge becomes meaningless once he hits weapon skill of about 3-4, since he's going to be bouncing out Tengwars for most attacks in there somewhere, and the redundancy (waste) from increasing the edge and then rolling lots of Tengwars is...well...wasteful. That leaves him a final Valor quality for (IMHO) lucky armor.

[Rocmistro]

Also it's worth nothing that a spearman or bowman might be using called shot regularly. Happens a lot in my game and definitely affects the impact of crits on a combat.

This is an interesting point, bluejay, but how does it relate to character optimization as we are discussing it?

[bluejay]

Well for instance it was mentioned earlier that the guys fishing for crits with spears might as well only get 3 dice in their chosen weapon but obviously five or six dice (as some of my group have now achieved having played through just about all published material - we're in 2972 now and have almost finished DoM) means that they can regularly land crits using Called Shots.

It also means that these characters are effective against heavy foes AND work quite effectively as goon-sweepers by dropping foes in a single hit.

If the combat simulator isn't taking that choice into account then it's missing a significant aspect of the high level game.

[Rocmistro]

I would advise to go: Great Spear, w/ Keen, Grievous, Fell and Giant Slaying, and a Great Helm with Protection +1. He's an absolute damage dealing badass who can do 15 damage + Body on big targets and will score lots of wounds in addition

Cultural rewards count towards the 3 qualities that can be added to an item so you can't add Keen, Grievous, Fell AND Giant Slaying.

Page 115 of the Revised Rulebook: "Adding a Cultural Reward to an item counts towards the maximum of 3 Qualities that can be attributed to it (i.e. an item can feature up to 2 Qualities and a Cultural Reward)."

Not sure if this was made clear in the first printing but a lot of people seem to miss this.

That's good to know, Bluejay, thanks, I missed it. Fortunately, I think it only serves to reinforce (at least for me), my position that not all weapons need to pimp out all 3 qualities all the time, and that in fact, I think heroes should pick a route (endurance damage or piercing blows) and optimize for that task.

[Rocmistro]

Well for instance it was mentioned earlier that the guys fishing for crits with spears might as well only get 3 dice in their chosen weapon but obviously five or six dice (as some of my group have now achieved having played through just about all published material - we're in 2972 now and have almost finished DoM) means that they can regularly land crits using Called Shots.

It also means that these characters are effective against heavy foes AND work quite effectively as goon-sweepers by dropping foes in a single hit.

If the combat simulator isn't taking that choice into account then it's missing a significant aspect of the high level game.

Oh absolutely. But don't get me wrong, I think that is a very viable optimization build, and it has merit. My example earlier about 2 qualites on spear for higher injury and lower edge, was for that particular build, not a statement that ALL SPEAR WIELDERS SHOULD ALWAYS BE LOW SKILL CRIT FISHERS! But I would decide early on for optimizaiton if I was going that route and then build to it. For example, going a Spear (or Bow) piercing-blow-crit build, I would probably use it with 1 or 2 fell-handed (dour-handed) masteries, and +2 injury quality, but skip the -1 edge. Since I'm going to be pumping up my skill and rolling a lot of dice, the tengwars will pay off for fell handed and the crit fishing. I would also synergize this build with a high body attribute build to fully emply those tengwar runes on damage.

[bluejay]

Yeah I missed that as well. I just went back and re-read the original Adventurer's Guide and the wording is far less clear. The Revised Rules clears it up a lot better.

[bluejay]

[quote="Rocmistro"][quote="bluejay"]Well for instance it was mentioned earlier that the guys fishing for crits with spears might as well only get 3 dice in their chosen weapon but obviously five or six dice (as some of my group have now achieved having played through just about all published material - we're in 2972 now and have almost finished DoM) means that they can regularly land crits using Called Shots.

It also means that these characters are effective against heavy foes AND work quite effectively as goon-sweepers by dropping foes in a single hit.

If the combat simulator isn't taking that choice into account then it's missing a significant aspect of the high level game.[/quote]

Oh absolutely. But don't get me wrong, I think that is a very viable optimization build, and it has merit. My example earlier about 2 qualites on spear for higher injury and lower edge, was for that particular build, not a statement that ALL SPEAR WIELDERS SHOULD ALWAYS BE LOW SKILL CRIT FISHERS! But I would decide early on for optimizaiton if I was going that route and then build to it. For example, going a Spear piercing blow crit build, I would probably use it with 1 or 2 fell handed masteries, and +2 injury quality, but skip the -1 edge. Since I'm going to be pumping up my skill and rolling a lot of dice, the tengwars will pay off for fell handed and the crit fishing. I would also synergize this build with a high body attribute build to fully emply those tengwar runes on damage.[/quote]

Yes that's an excellent build strategy. I wasn't saying that you did imply all spear wielders should be low skill crit fishers but I'd suggest that all of them should really be aiming to use called shots in the long term. It's an incredibly effective approach.

[Glorelendil]

In response to shield/parry discussion: you're right that the diminishing returns happens on both ends of the scale. Against skill of 3 or 4 increasing your Stance + Parry from 8 to 9 isn't going to have much effect. But you can always switch stances, and going from 14 to 15 is more value.

So let's look at the other case: Wits 6 and a Great Shield. In Defensive Stance you're increasing your total TN from 21 to 22, which has a lot less value. In Forward Stance, though, you're going from 15 to 16, which is pretty good value.

But here's the rub: if you're regularly fighting opponents with higher weapon skill, your weapon skill is probably also higher, which means (unless you're an elf with Shadow Bane) you're more likely to be sinking back into Open or Defensive.

Also, against the really tough opponents there are generally fewer of them, or a single one, which means the one person getting beat on will almost undoubtedly be in defensive stance, and for the others the Parry is less relevant. If they are getting hit by minions, they will probably be low-skill minions.

So I'll stand by my analysis: Reinforced is best for those with low total Parry. If you have high Wits and a big Shield, spend the point on something else.