Question about called shots

[Michebugio]

Hi all, I come back to this great forum after a long time since I started playing TOR and I have some questions about game mechanics regarding Called shots which gave me some trouble.

1) Is it possible to make called shots with daggers? One of my players trained in the Dagger proficiency to be a kind of an all-around brawler who can fight with his fists and throw improvised weapons at the occurrence, but the rules don't specify what are the effects of a called shot using a dagger (also, I assume that no called shots are allowed with fists and improvised weapons, though that could make for an interesting home rule). I would say that it would be a piercing blow, even if that is not very effective at TN 12.

2) Is it possible to make a called shot during an opening volley? This simply isn't stated so I would assume that the answer is yes, but on the other hand the opening volley seems an attack from a rather long distance which wouldn't allow precision on an attack. What do you think?

3) The fumble is described as follows:"fumbling attacker loses his footing, exposing himself: the next time the fumbling character is attacked, the difficulty to hit him will be equal to his basic combat TN". The next time doesn't mean the next round as I initially thought, so should I assume that if the fumbling character is not attacked for, say, 3 rounds, on the fourth round he will STILL have his guard dropped? That seems quite odd.

4) Finally, a question about enemies' Piercing blows. One of my players, a Woodman, has a Parry so high that in Defensive Stance minor enemies like orc soldiers and goblins should roll a 22 (or more, if he decides to use a shield) to hit him. That means that either the opponents completely miss him, or they score a Piercing blow on a Sauron roll of their action dice! Am I missing something, or it does go this way for character with high Parry? I remember that in D&D the confirmation roll after a critical hit was introduced for this exact purpose, and it seems strange that there's nothing like that in TOR.


Thanks to everybody that will kindly answer!

[Falenthal]

1) No, there are no Called Shots for Dagger.
I house-rule that they inflict a Pierce, with Injury 12. Not very effective, but better than nothing.

2) Nothing tells me that you can't do a called shot during opening volleys. They are an attack, so why not? If the distance is long, then you should just apply the -2 or -4 penalty from medium or long range. That makes the called shot harder to hit, but doesn't prevent it.

3) The fumbling character had to be attacking someone, so this someone has to be still engaged with him and will (probably) attack the character later in the same round or next round (if he had attacked first). I think the sentence "the next time" was meant to include either the same round or next, depending on who holds the initiative. For other situations, like if a companion kills the fumbling character engagement and no other adversary can attack or things like that, I would say "use your judgment":
The company is facing a single troll. A hero fumbles in one of his attacks, but another companion kills the troll in the same round, so the troll has no chance to srike again. The company resumes his journey and, three days later, are attacked by a group of attercops. The "fumbling hero" should be exposed or not? I think the situation gives yourself the answer.

4) That character has a high chance of survival! Yes, enemies need to roll a Sauron or they won't hit him. Or use some special abilities, or try to attack the rest of the heroes until the Woodman stands alone facing wave after wave of goblins and snagas... Eventually one of them will roll an Eye, and the Woodman will fail his Protection test. Oh, what a pleasure for those filthy little creatures...

[Glorelendil]

On #4, this is a great example of the finishing returns Francesco built into the game. As your parry increases, so does the percentage of hits that you take that are pierces. Plus, because of the probability distribution of dice pools, it becomes decreasingly likely that additional parry will even matter. Thus, as Parry increases, the marginal value of more parry goes down, both in the absolute sense and relative to Protection.

[Michebugio]

Thanks!

On #2, that raises a question about when an opening volley should be considered medium or long range. I know my players and I bet that if I state that the volley is long range, the archer will say "well, I shoot my arrow just as the enemy enters short range". So either all opening volleys suffer no penalty, or there must be another reason why the players suffer the distance penalty.

On #3, it's pretty obvious if you put it that way, but that means that a fumble is essentially a very minor nuisance, especially for archers who are rarely targeted by attacks (only by goblin archers, or creatures with Great Leap). I would house rule that if a character provokes a Called shot by an opponent rolling an Eye, if that opponent couldn't reach him because he is on the Rearward, another opponent who can make ranged attacks will attempt the Called shot on the original opponent's behalf. Thus if an archer from the Rearward fumbles because of an Eye, he also "triggers" a free Called shot attempt from an opponent that can actually reach him.

On #4, of course I forgot to specify that the sky-high Parry was when in a forest By the way, that character was defending Rhosgobel from an horde of orcs and managed to butcher an endless amount of orc soldiers before I could score a Piercing Blow with a goblin archer, after 3 other failed attempts. At some point, I just stated that "they're too many" and forced him to retreat, otherwise the combat could have lasted forever ("forever" means beyond any reasonable amount of time to be given in a game session). Sometimes, you REALLY have to fake the dice results to prevent such game exploitations...

[Woodclaw]

On #2, that raises a question about when an opening volley should be considered medium or long range. I know my players and I bet that if I state that the volley is long range, the archer will say "well, I shoot my arrow just as the enemy enters short range". So either all opening volleys suffer no penalty, or there must be another reason why the players suffer the distance penalty.

Since I always found that little range table to be very counterintuitive, compared to how abstract the rest of the rules are this is my personal solution: use the number of opening volleys to your advantage.
If there's only a single volly that means that the enemies are already close enough for short range fire (including throwing weapons).
Two or three volleys means that the enemies are closing in from a respectable distance, meaning that the first and eventually second volley are at medium range, while the last is at short range.
More than three volleys means that there's plenty of time to fire and react, all the volleys but the last three are at long range.

[Falenthal]

On #2, that raises a question about when an opening volley should be considered medium or long range. I know my players and I bet that if I state that the volley is long range, the archer will say "well, I shoot my arrow just as the enemy enters short range". So either all opening volleys suffer no penalty, or there must be another reason why the players suffer the distance penalty.

If they wait to shoot until in short range, then they might loose the second shot (up to you as LM).

On #3, it's pretty obvious if you put it that way, but that means that a fumble is essentially a very minor nuisance, especially for archers who are rarely targeted by attacks (only by goblin archers, or creatures with Great Leap). I would house rule that if a character provokes a Called shot by an opponent rolling an Eye, if that opponent couldn't reach him because he is on the Rearward, another opponent who can make ranged attacks will attempt the Called shot on the original opponent's behalf. Thus if an archer from the Rearward fumbles because of an Eye, he also "triggers" a free Called shot attempt from an opponent that can actually reach him.

If an adversary is making ranged attacks, then he can choose a new target every round. If a hero has fumbled, it's logical that he will be his next target.
Your question, though, raises another one: if a hero is engaged with two or more enemies, and fumbles on a called shot, do all his engaged enemies gain the benefit, or only the first one to attack him? As per the sentece, it seems that only the first one to attack him gains the benefit. But could also be read as "everyone that attacks him during the next adversaries phase, in the same or the next round (not both), gains the benefit." But if that would be the case, even all archers could choose him as their target, and that could be a massacre.

[Michebugio]

Since I always found that little range table to be very counterintuitive, compared to how abstract the rest of the rules are this is my personal solution: use the number of opening volleys to your advantage.

I think it's a nice way to handle this. Making it even more simple: every additional volley beyond the first has a cumulative -2 to attack roll. So three volleys mean first attack at -4, second at -2 and third with no penalty. When do you get so many volleys? Well, if the attack is an ambush, a normal success grants initiative and one volley, a great success grants 2 volleys and an extraordinary success 3. Same way if the initiative is determined rolling Battle checks.

if a hero is engaged with two or more enemies, and fumbles on a called shot, do all his engaged enemies gain the benefit, or only the first one to attack him?

Just the first, as "the next time he is attacked" is very likely to indicate a precise time, so one attack. Also remember that the character will not only get a fumble, but also a Called shot attempt in response, so making this true for more than one enemy attacking the character would be a massacre indeed.

(By the way I use to house rule that enemies' Called shots triggered by an Eye don't need Tengwars to succeed, they just need to be normal successes).

[Angelalex242]

On #4, that's a unique property of Woodmen. Wits 7, Favored Wits 10. Dwarves with Durin's Way arguably do it better with wits 6 and no need to waste their favored bonus on it, though their total parry is only 9 that way. On the other side, they tank those pierces like a pro with their 3d+4 armor. High elves are probably the best, with Wits 8 that can be raised to 9 with a lesser ring. Impossible to hit...anywhere. Of course, you get a permanent shadow for that, but sacrifices must be made...