Lesser Ring

[Angelalex242]

I'd set the reward up for one permanent Shadow, you get your choice of:

+1 to all attributes, or max stats for your race.

Since a high elf's 'max stats' are 7/5/8, the lesser ring can raise you to that...

Or just add +1 to all your attributes.

Either way, it goes up +3.

Seems more balanced to me.

[Angelalex242]

First, this is a reward you have to pay XP for. It's not notably more OP then the double strike of Spear of the Last Alliance. The reward should be huge if there's any downside at all, as almost all rewards do not have a downside.

[Deadmanwalking]

First, this is a reward you have to pay XP for. It's not notably more OP then the double strike of Spear of the Last Alliance. The reward should be huge if there's any downside at all, as almost all rewards do not have a downside.

+1 to all three stats is indeed vastly more powerful than any existing Reward or Virtue. Including the Spear of the Last Alliance (which only kicks in if you roll two sixes and spend a Hope, bear in mind).

+1 to both ranged and melee Damage, +1 Endurance, +1 Hope, +1 Parry is at least 4 Rewards/Virtues worth of stuff right there (Fell-Handed, Dour-Handed, Spearman's Shield, and half each of Confidence and Resilience), and that's not even counting the increased usefulness of spending Hope on all skills due to higher stats, which is easily worth another virtue or two. Now, some of those are less than spectacular Rewards/Virtues...but some of them are nice ones, and look at the sheer number of them!

I mean...getting a 5 or 6 for one deal in Virtues/Rewards in exchange for a single point of permanent Shadow? Yeah, that's not balanced with other Rewards at all. Not even a little. It's profoundly and unreasonably more powerful.

Now, the default version may well not be quite good enough, I'm really not quite sure, but the version you propose is profoundly overpowered as compared to, well, pretty much every remotely equivalent thing in the game.

[Angelalex242]

Hmm. Would my version be balanced if the point of Permanent Shadow DID include a Flaw?

[Deadmanwalking]

Hmm. Would my version be balanced if the point of Permanent Shadow DID include a Flaw?

That really starts being a judgment call. More on the LM's part than the player's.

If it includes a flaw, it reduces the lifespan of the character in a meaningful fashion...but that's still a heck of a power-up. It lets you choose to burn out faster in order to be notably more powerful. I'm not sure if that's a good option to have available given the way TOR tends to work. I'd argue against it, personally.

If you want to power it up, I'd be more inclined to leave its effects on attributes as is, but have it borrow more from the Wondrous Artefact rules (it is a magic ring, after all). Let you spend 1 xp to add a Blessing to a specific common skill associated with the Ring's stat of choice and then another xp to make Magical Results available for a Hope on that skill, for example. So 2 xp to turn it into a full-on Wondrous Artefact on top of its default abilities.

That'd seem more thematically appropriate, without overpowering things (bear in mind, 3 xp is the most a Wondrous Artifact without a Greater Blessing can ever cost, so it's a minimal cost-break), but would allow a player more choice in what magic items they have available, and seems powerful enough in its own way.

And it'd be unique in a Reward, but a lot of Virtues work that way (escalatin g abilities for a bit of xp), so it fits with the system well enough to suit me.

[Angelalex242]

Ah! Yes, paying XP to improve it over fellowship phases sounds good.

Do they detail what the 3 Great Rings of the Elves do in Rivendell?

[Deadmanwalking]

Ah! Yes, paying XP to improve it over fellowship phases sounds good.

Yeah, I'm really quite pleased with the idea...and thus very likely to implement it if I ever wind up running TOR (rather than playing in it as I do now).

Do they detail what the 3 Great Rings of the Elves do in Rivendell?

Sadly, I don't believe so (though I've been avoiding reading it cover-to-cover to avoid spoilers for things my character shouldn't know). I did read the magic item rules pretty thoroughly, including the examples, and didn't see 'em there.

There are certainly rules for non-combative magic items which can be used as a starting place (I imagine Greater Blessings being a definite thing for them), but I'd personally bet they go way beyond that.