Rocmistro wrote:Oooh! I got quoted.
I'm kind of a big deal!
Question: If Legolas and Gimli have 5 Ranks in Primary Weapon, 4 ranks in Battle, stay in defensive stance for an entire battle, Gimli has armor 4d+1 and Legolas 2d, how long will it take them to kill 40 orcs each?
Well, judging by Glorelendil's combat calculator, they basically can't. At least not in a single one-at-a-time fashion, and in the way TOR does fights.
Using your stats and giving them basically every relevant Virtue and Reward...their odds of success against 10 Orc soldiers are in the single digits, never mind 40 (though that calculator does lack an option for Old Hatred, which would inevitably help a lot on the Dwarf end of things). Their success rate against five, now, that's much better (for why this is relevant see below).
But the '40 kills' thing? That was during a large battle that took pretty much the whole day with excellent defensive positioning...it's not at all unbelievable to say that it represented 6-10 battles in the mechanical sense, with rests between them. That being the case, that could represent 4-7 Orcs per battle, which is much better odds for our doughty heroes.
Additionally, it being a major battle, there were other soldiers there absorbing some blows from the Orcs and allowing many more kills for our protagonists. Say Soldier #1 and Gimli are fighting side by side, Orcs attack them both, Gimli kills his foe while the soldier wounds his, the next round, Gimli might well have the chance to finish off Soldier #1's foe without ever being attacked by him. This works the other way too, but with a much higher skill rating and Old Hatred making his blows universally kills, Gimli's a lot more likely to receive such opportunities from random soldiers than they are from him.
And let's not even talk about Legolas...I mean, with an effectively unlimited number of front-liners, an archer can just kill and kill. It might take a while, but it's not hugely risky vs. melee troops. Orc archers and spear throwers are a risk, but not as large of one as all that.
So...no, I'd be inclined to say the characters in LOTR are within the scope of TOR's system power-wise (though at the
very high end...primary combat skill at 5+, a sum of 9-10 or more between between Valor and Wisdom at a minimum, etc.). Aragorn presumably kept up his Hope by not spending it much via high skills. And possibly with the aid of Gandalf...who does bear the ring Narya, which (to quote the LotR wiki, since I lack book access at the moment) "is described as having the power to inspire others to resist tyranny, domination and despair". That sure sounds like, mechanically, it would provide Hope in its' own right.
Now Gandalf is much harder (probably impossible) to represent in the system with anything resembling PC stats, but the rest? Nah, I think you can do that if you like (well, doing Boromir would necessitate a Culture for Men of Gondor, but aside from that...)
EDIT:
Going another route, using the 'Legolas' version I was using, I just walked him through 41 fights (without the benefit of a Woodland Bow, sadly). Total losses on his side (as he killed all the Orcs) were 34 Endurance, and 1 Hope (to avoid a Wound)...in 80 some rounds. If we assume someone vaguely competent using Inspire on say, 1/10 of those, that's 16 Endurance recovered (assuming the base 2 every time). If we assume 3 Fight Ends (so, 3 fights), that's another 12 (on the 'Noble Blood' build anyway), and indicates he can do it in three fights pretty readily with a modicum of assistance. Heck, as an archer, him taking that many attacks if probably unrealistic. I'd assume half that many and thus half the damage, or so.
Going with the 'Gimli' I was using and walking through 42 Orcs, he loses 16 Endurance and 0 Hope, so that's even better, and only barely enough to make him Weary. So he's good with a single break in the middle, no Inspiring or other rests needed. I did this manually figuring in Old Hatred (ignoring damage to him that happened after he hit an Orc, basically).
Those aren't averages, and do involve only one-on-one fights (not any Orc team-ups on the heroes in the same round) but I just did them...so it seems possible.
