Great Size, Adversaries, Favoured Abilities and Weariness

[Angelalex242]

Well, yeah. There are foes in this game that are simply 'above your CR.' You wouldn't send a party of 1st level adventurers up against a Beholder in D&D, neither should you expect your adventurers to do anything but RUN when you see that many snow trolls.

Running becomes easier to bear when you realize that your characters start at 'level 1.'

[Rich H]

When you come across a creature that is obviously of "great size," a wise adventurer tries to avoid a fight. That's not metagaming; that's common sense.

Agreed.

[zedturtle]

Well, yeah. There are foes in this game that are simply 'above your CR.' You wouldn't send a party of 1st level adventurers up against a Beholder in D&D, neither should you expect your adventurers to do anything but RUN when you see that many snow trolls.

Running becomes easier to bear when you realize that your characters start at 'level 1.'

They're not, however. Valour/Wisdom around 3/4 or vice versa.

One they could have dealt with...

[Stormcrow]

It's also true that a part of a role-playing game is (or used to be, yer whippersnappers) learning good strategies and tactics. If the party is killed by snow-trolls they thought they could take, the players won't make that mistake again.

[Angelalex242]

Well, not all LMs think 'And you died to random Snow Trolls, suckers!' to be a good ending to a campaign.

So they might pull a 'Gandalf/Aragorn/someone else that tough just happened to be passing by and saves your butts from the encounter you had no hope of winning.' (Ya know, like Gandalf did to the Stone Trolls in the Hobbit. That was pretty much a TPK till Gandalf came back and cleaned house.)

LM: Fair warning: I would like to remind you Thorin's group, containing 13 moderately experienced dwarves led by a badass dwarf and 1 hobbit were TPKed by 3 trolls till Gandalf showed up. There are considerably less of you. Choose your plans wisely.

[Glorelendil]

Well I am relieved to know the problem was just that we are simply bloodthirsty and inexperienced.

I'm amused by the "next time don't fight it" responses, in the absence of other information.

[bluejay]

So a couple of quick thoughts on this...

At least now adversaries of Great Size are officially Weary when reduced to 0 Endurance. Back when I ran the snow trolls encounter it was still an optional rule mooted on the forums. Without that rule there was definitely a lot of meta-gaming usage of Intimidate Foe. Now that is required less.

That Hound of Mirkwood is awesome for harassing enemies and making them Weary right from the off.

One thing about Intimidate Foe is that it feels odd to try and intimidate a troll in any way. Not just because of their overwhelming power and size but also their stupidity and animal-like intelligence. Doing the same on a Great Orc feels far more natural.

[Angelalex242]

Well...if 13 dwarves and 1 hobbit couldn't take 3 trolls, when they all have (except Bilbo) Great Axes with their really high injury ratings, what hope do your players have?

[Glorelendil]

Well...if 13 dwarves and 1 hobbit couldn't take 3 trolls, when they all have (except Bilbo) Great Axes with their really high injury ratings, what hope do your players have?

Maybe when he was writing that chapter the Professor didn't understand how favoured skills benefit from attribute level.

[bluejay]

Well...if 13 dwarves and 1 hobbit couldn't take 3 trolls, when they all have (except Bilbo) Great Axes with their really high injury ratings, what hope do your players have?

I'm genuinely not sure they have any weapons with them at all at that point. The only one who puts up a fight is Thorin and he uses a flaming branch.