Great Size, Adversaries, Favoured Abilities and Weariness

[zedturtle]

So adversaries always add their attribute bonus to every favoured roll, even when Weary, right?

And Great Size adversaries need to be wounded at least once, right?

Which means that an adversary with an Attribute Level of 8 and Armour of 3d has an expected value of 15.5 on just the success dice and the attribute bonus alone. Which means it should handily pass almost all TN 14 and TN 16 armour tests...

Meaning that encountering more than one of these adversaries at the same time is essentially a guaranteed TPK*.

Am I doing something wrong?

Should Attribute bonuses be cut in half or ignored for Weary adversaries?


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* I think I've actually got a way to extricate them, but it does involve them fleeing... which I don't think they're going to do.

[bluejay]

Yes it is tough definitely. Firstly you have to get them wearied to have any chance of wounding them. At that point each dice then gets an average of only 2.5 but more importantly their chance of rolling literally nothing on all three success dice combined is 1/8.

I guess the point is not that they're unkillable. just that they are likely to take a lot of piercing blows before one really gets through.

Taking them out requires good fellowship teamwork. Reduce their Hate ASAP to get them Weary; use Rally Comrades, Protect Companion and knockback to mitigate the inevitable damage they dish out; have some characters specialise in weapons with high injury. Fighting something like a troll is more like an elephant than a man. You'd use spears and axes when possible.

[Stormcrow]

Not everything needs to be killed to be dealt with.

[Glorelendil]

Not everything needs to be killed to be dealt with.

Heresy. Gimme mah lootz.

[Rich H]

Not everything needs to be killed to be dealt with.

Heresy. Gimme mah lootz.

I also struggle with the idea that characters, within the game, recognise specific creature builds within a specific race of creature and alter their tactics accordingly to 'beat it'. This isn't just a problem with TOR but lots of games but its one of the things as a player that breaks my immersion.

[bluejay]

I agree with you about the meta-gaming aspect Rich. With my group it happened more organically.

In one fight they became aware that they were struggling to wound a huge troll. They realised that while their weapons were good against human sized opponents, you would realistically tend towards bigger weapons when fighting something the size of an elephant (or very heavily armoured). This is arguably way more realistic and colourful than many other game systems. Despite their prevalence, swords aren't all that great in a lot of situations where spears, great axes and mattocks would be more appropriate. Even the vaunted English longbows stopped being effective once plate armour was readily available so they'd still struggle with thick hides of Trolls.

As for rallying comrades and protecting companions, I think they simply become a necessity at the higher levels (largely because it becomes impossible to avoid being hit).

The only one where I think you're right is using Intimidate Foe to Weary an opponent quickly. That can be a bit meta-gamey.

[Rich H]

The only one where I think you're right is using Intimidate Foe to Weary an opponent quickly. That can be a bit meta-gamey.

I should have been clearer but, yes, that's the one I was specifically talking about; agree with all your other points as those feel like some in-game logic is being applied to the decision making process of the characters. Intimidating and making a foe Weary doesn't.

[Stormcrow]

I also struggle with the idea that characters, within the game, recognise specific creature builds within a specific race of creature and alter their tactics accordingly to 'beat it'.

I think Glorelendil's jocularity may have diverted my point. In Tolkien's stories the heroes don't fight every enemy they encounter. Fights are to be avoided whenever possible. The One Ring does not follow the cliché of "kill the monster and steal its treasure."

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.

[zedturtle]

Yes, and they unfortunately stumbled upon one snow-troll and then, due to some really bad dice rolls, they ended up attracting two more.

So it's not like they went out of their way to get into a no-win scenario.

[bluejay]

Haha, I knew it was that encounter! The Snow Troll ambush is like TOR's own Kobayashi Maru!