Two quick rule questions?

[J3W1]

Sorry guys I'm new to The One Ring, mind if I ask 2 quick questions?

1. Why the design splitting Advancement points / Experience points? I understand that they are attained differently and also spent differently, just curious why a more common pool of points for character progression wasn't chosen. I like it, i.e. common skills only advance by actually using them etc., and you cannot increase Valor by using Craft.

2. Fatigue is the total of all Encumbrance? So:

Item A = 2 encumbrance
Item B = 3 encumbrance
Total encumbrance = 5

Why am I then calling that 5 Fatigue instead of just 5 Encumbrance?

[Fenton Hardy]

I see the AP and EP as quite different. The awarding of advancement points represents the honing of specific skills through practice and therefore are narrowly defined activities. The awarding of experience points, on the other hand, represents the maturation of the hero and is broader and more fundamental to the character and his or her development. Tested heroes become wiser, more valorous, or both and are more capable of resisting the Shadow.

Fatigue has two components. Encumbrance is one type of fatigue associated with the gear - armour, weapons, treasure, etc - a hero carries. Travel fatigue is another kind of fatigue that is calculated separately and is acquired by long journeys. Journey fatigue can be reduced through rest, while encumbrance fatigue can only be relieved by dropping items. The two types of fatigue are added together to calculate the total fatigue.

[Wbweather]

I can't speak for the rational for the design, although as I see it, advancement points represent the character's growth in proficiency in the use of the common skills and are based on the successful rolling of dice. They are spent exclusively on leveling the common skills up.

Experience points represent more of the characters personal growth as a hero both in renown and martial abilities and are accumulated and spent based on participating in the adventures independent on the success of his rolls.

Fatigue represents the combined encumbrance of all the gear plus any travel fatigue accumulated through failed travel tests.

[Glorelendil]

I think you would also run into trouble buying everything from the same pool. If prices were similar, players could ignore their skills and boost wisdom/valour/weapons really high. If the prices were dramatically different to prevent this, they could ignore v/w/w and buy mad skillz.

[zedturtle]

Everyone has covered the Fatigue/Encumbrance question really well, so I'm not going to put my two pence in there, other than to say if you look at my character sheet, you'll see the two broken out (which I feel helps in understanding how things work together).

As for AP & XP, I know it's a pain in the butt to keep track of two groups of points, but I think it's worth it. To wit:

APs are:

• Player-driven. Active roleplaying creates more AP opportunities.
• Well-integrated with Traits. Meaning not only tagging Traits for more APs, but also the Traits that you use to auto-succeed allow you to have skills that might never need advancement. But you'll never improve other skills if you only rely on auto-successes.
• Designed to prevent skill spamming. Meaning that the way the AP system works (as written), it encourages players to use skills from each category. Since it's hard to get the second and (especially) the third AP, players tend to get at least one AP in each category. Since more tengwars mean more chances to get second and third APs, players tend to invest in at least one skill in each of the six categories. TOR characters seem to be much more well-rounded than many other game systems' characters.

Whereas, XPs are:

• LM-driven. The LM can control the rate of advancement by throttling the amount of XP.
• Balancing. Some players are not active planners or roleplayers. They will tend to accumulate fewer APs (not zero, by virtue of the Journey/Encounter systems and other tests), but their XP will be the same as more active players. This means their powers and combat skills tend to stay in parity with the more active players, preventing them from feeling eclipsed by the other players.
• Valuable. Since they don't have to be on the same scale as APs, XPs only need to be balanced with themselves. Instead of ridiculously high numbers, they can be small and discreet and valuable. There's just something that amuses me about players getting excited about having received 5 XP and how powerful that small number is in the system.

[Blubbo Baggins]

Whereas, XPs are:
[*]Balancing. Some players are not active planners or roleplayers. They will tend to accumulate fewer APs (not zero, by virtue of the Journey/Encounter systems and other tests), but their XP will be the same as more active players. This means their powers and combat skills tend to stay in parity with the more active players, preventing them from feeling eclipsed by the other players.

"Active" is an important word here. The way XPs are given, it does encourage players to be present (show up in person, post in PbP), but you are right in that, even if some certain people *cough* like Mr. Baggins *cough* like to hog posting in PbP (or talk a lot in person), they don't earn more XP for it than those who are present but do a better job at filtering their PCs actions/chatter.

[Majestic]

Excellent answers so far, especially the difference between AP and XP.

I had trouble (as did others) differentiating between Fatigue and other Endurance loss initially, but the Revised Rulebook has a great chart (p. 132) that makes things much clearer, and helps one to understand the difference. I also really like zed's character sheet because it breaks out Fatigue as separate from other Endurance loss.

Journey fatigue can be reduced through rest, while encumbrance fatigue can only be relieved by dropping items. The two types of fatigue are added together to calculate the total fatigue.

All Fatigue is definitely added together, but I'm not sure that one has to differentiate the two types of Fatigue (from journeys and from gear) when recovering it. It's true that the chart on p. 132 does say "Journey Fatigue Recovery", but the spelled-out rules (on "Recovering Fatigue", p. 159) don't spell out a difference between Journey Fatigue and Fatigue from gear. Maybe I've been doing it wrong, but I just allow characters to recover all Fatigue at a rate of 1 per night's sleep in a safe place.

[J3W1]

Thanks guys, that answers my questions.

Mind if I ask one more?

My Dwarven weapon skills are as follows:
(Axes): 2
Great Axe: 1

I am using a great axe, is my skill rating 2, or 1. And is it favored?

[Wbweather]

So the issue here is that this is a redundant weapon skill set. Generally speaking, you should start with either a favored weapon with a skill of 2 or a general class of weapons that you are proficient at rank 2 but not favored. You then would have a secondary unfavored weapon with a skill of 1 and a dagger with a skill of 1.

Starting weapons choices for a dwarf should be one of the following:
1) (Axes) 2, Short Sword 1, Dagger 1
2) Mattock 2, Short Sword 1, Dagger 1

In your set up, you have a skill of 2 with any axe and so your great axe should also be a skill of 2. If a weapon is underlined, it is favored. So you should have a favored skill of 2 with a great axe and an unfavored skill of 2 with any other axe, if you choose to go with that weapon skill set.

[Deadmanwalking]

Thanks guys, that answers my questions.

Mind if I ask one more?

My Dwarven weapon skills are as follows:
(Axes): 2
Great Axe: 1

I am using a great axe, is my skill rating 2, or 1. And is it favored?

Uh...I'm pretty sure that's not a possible list of skills. (Axes) covers the Great Axe. You can no more have a different Great Axe skill from it than you could have something like:

Great Axe: 2
Great Axe: 1

It's just not possible.