Question on Rewards

[Yepesnopes]

Hi,

I have been playing this game for a while, but so far I have never been the LM. This year I will give it a shot. Before doing it, I would like to get some insight on some doubts I have from you guys, and may be change or house rule them accordingly.

One thing I will tweak is the Cultural Virtues Deadly Archery from Mirkwood Elves and the Fair Shot from Hobbits of the Shire, but for this I already got my idea thanks to the 30+ pages thread on this forum.

What I want to ask is:

-Is the Cultural Reward Brazen Armour from Men of the Lake worth the XP? and what do you think tweaking it by removing the malus die against piercing and just leaving the bonus protection die against blunt and edge weapons?

-Is the Cultural Reward Spear of King Bladorthin from the Bardings worth the investment in XP? As I understand it, it is only useful when throwing the spear. That is, once per combat maximum. Do you see this reward picked up in your games? any idea of tweaking this reward?

Thanks in advance.

[zedturtle]

Hi,

I have been playing this game for a while, but so far I have never been the LM. This year I will give it a shot. Before doing it, I would like to get some insight on some doubts I have from you guys, and may be change or house rule them accordingly.

One thing I will tweak is the Cultural Virtues Deadly Archery from Mirkwood Elves and the Fair Shot from Hobbits of the Shire, but for this I already got my idea thanks to the 30+ pages thread on this forum.

What I want to ask is:

-Is the Cultural Reward Brazen Armour from Men of the Lake worth the XP? and what do you think tweaking it by removing the malus die against piercing and just leaving the bonus protection die against blunt and edge weapons?

GE doesn't think so; Roc and I do think it's pretty cool. I would keep the malus, as Roc pointed out in the evaluation thread, it's weak against weapons with low TNs and strong against weapons with higher TNs.

-Is the Cultural Reward Spear of King Bladorthin from the Bardings worth the investment in XP? As I understand it, it is only useful when throwing the spear. That is, once per combat maximum. Do you see this reward picked up in your games? any idea of tweaking this reward?

Thanks in advance.

Nope, never see it. I think it's one of the weakest Rewards in the game.

[Yepesnopes]

GE doesn't think so; Roc and I do think it's pretty cool. I would keep the malus, as Roc pointed out in the evaluation thread, it's weak against weapons with low TNs and strong against weapons with higher TNs.

Mmmmmm indeed.

I will look for this evaluation thread. Time to use the new Palantir thing.

[zedturtle]

It's linked in my meta-post on the first page of the FAQ thread; the optimisation entry, I believe.

[Glorelendil]

I think in my second post I show the results from a computer sim I ran.

Math says it's bad. Worse than break even.

[zedturtle]

I think in my second post I show the results from a computer sim I ran.

Math says it's bad. Worse than break even.

Bah. You and your 'math'. Next, you're going to tell me that words mean things.

On a more serious note, I can't seem to find the thread at present (it doesn't seem to be the optimisation thread), but did your sim factor in various scenarios. Say, for sake of example, if you were about to face a mess of Black Uruks, would you rather have Brazen Armour or a shield?

[Glorelendil]

No. I don't think you can predict what enemies (with which weapons) you will face, so I didn't bother to try.

[zedturtle]

No. I don't think you can predict what enemies (with which weapons) you will face, so I didn't bother to try.

Ah. My point was that it seems to me that it's one of those Rewards that can be highly situational... get it right before you're about to be in a big fight, and then trade it in later for magical goodies.

[Angelalex242]

Spear of King Blad really should just be on all the time, including melee. Then it'd be good. Keen and Fell that thing and watch it go.

Brazen Armor, yeah, I'd remove the malus against piercing. As GE says, it comes out statistically worse.

[jacksarge]

One of my players has the Spear of King B but never uses it and has chosen to upgrade his sword skills instead, eventually picking up "keen". The Spear perhaps isn't "shiny" enough to attract use as primary weapon ?