Great Orc protection roll

[bluejay]

I noticed that the Great Orc stats in the core Rulebook give it a protection roll of 4d and is favoured (adding the attribute level of 7 to the roll!) The kind of protection that makes Snow Trolls look easy to wound!

On the other hand, the three named characters that are based on Great Orcs (Radgul from Rivendell, Gorgol and the new Great Goblin from Heart of the Wild) have 4d but it is not favoured.

Has anyone ever run a game with the real Great Orc stats? They seem pretty much impossible to Wound. I had wondered if the new stats in Heart of the Wild were a 'fix' but then the revised core Rulebook has kept the same favoured protection roll. Has this been mentioned in errata anywhere?

[mirkwoodfalcon]

The way I see it, based on the Great Orc's stats, the underline is intentional. To successfully defeat him, heroes will likely need to reduce his endurance to 0 first (this makes him weary, per the Great Size description.) After he's weary, his protection rolls will suffer substantially (an average of 2 dice will fail to give any bonus, which pretty much makes his protection rolls 2d+feat die+7, which is well within the range of failure.)

[Angelalex242]

Pretty much, what everyone else said. Drain his hate away, then attack him. Luckily for Dwarves with Axe of Az, they have another way to weary him too. (Attribute cap on the Axe is 7 or lower, after all...)

[Corvo]

The way I see it, based on the Great Orc's stats, the underline is intentional. To successfully defeat him, heroes will likely need to reduce his endurance to 0 first (this makes him weary, per the Great Size description.) After he's weary, his protection rolls will suffer substantially (an average of 2 dice will fail to give any bonus, which pretty much makes his protection rolls 2d+feat die+7, which is well within the range of failure.)

I agree in general term with Mirkwoodfalcon's analysis.

Nevertheless, I want to note that "4d weary" doesn't have the same average as 2d: if, in average, two dies fail to give any bonus, it means that the other two dies have rolled 4-6 (average 5), much more than the average result of a d6 (3,5).
As a general rule, the average of a d6 is 3,5,
while the average of a "weary d6" is 2,5

So, the average armour roll of a Great Orc, while weary, is around 22...

[Angelalex242]

...that is also why it's fortunate the Fell Keen Axe of Az has an injury rating of 22.

[bluejay]

I should have been clearer at the start. I've run well over 70 sessions of the game now and the Wearying tactic is very well documented (Hound of Mirkwood being the easiest way to do this). As Corvo points out it only reduces the average dice value from 3.5 to 2.5 and still makes him more than tough to stop.

No one so far has said whether they've put one in the game.

[zedturtle]

I put one in at the end of Tales; my group is large (was seven at that time) and they needed an extra challenge (and they had kinda done okay with two snow trolls, though it got dicey...). I did nerf him quite a bit by making him be the one holding the Chain; he couldn't use his regular attacks but his Commanding Voice was doing a very nice job of keeping my Hate-drainers frustrated.

Eventually, one of the heroes suffered a Bout of Madness and tried to wrestle the Chain from him (becoming ensnared by it in the process). That freed up the Black Orc to use his regular weapon skills, turning him into a very dangerous foe.

Then the dragon came.

[Corvo]

Some time ago I was writing here that the Great Orc is a campaign-ending opponent, maybe the toughest "not-named" opponents in the game... I had just posted that someone (Glorelendil?) chimed in telling "though? We killed one last week: it was our second adventure. He lasted three rounds..." or something like this

[bluejay]

Nice!

Well it's about getting a lot of piercing blows or just getting lucky. In the last game of DoM my wife's elf killed a mountain troll in her opening volley with her woodland bow so those lucky moments do happen.

[Glorelendil]

Nice!

Well it's about getting a lot of piercing blows or just getting lucky. In the last game of DoM my wife's elf killed a mountain troll in her opening volley with her woodland bow so those lucky moments do happen.

Two pierces, both of which he failed his protection test, in the opening volley?

Yeah, that's low odds...