Evaluating the outcome of an Encounters optional rule

[Falenthal]

Don't forget that Preliminary rolls of Insight also count towards the no.of successes/failures for the specific Encounter!

That's an interesting interpretation of the RAW and not one I've heard before. Why do you think that preliminary rolls, that are there to determine bonus success dice available to use in the encounter, also count towards successes and failures within the specific encounter?

I'm with Rich, here. I also don't think Preliminary rolls count towards the number of successes/failures. After all, the character are still not talking to the NPC during the Preliminary rolls.

See this from p.189 of the Revised Core:

Evaluating the Outcome of an
Encounter – Optional Rule

In addition to the rules for Tolerance, the Loremaster is
advised to keep track of the number of successful rolls
achieved by the player-heroes during an encounter’s
Introduction and Interaction stages.

[Angelalex242]

My other concern is that low level characters will have serious trouble learning anything. Average tolerance for a 0 XP party is 2, sometimes just 1.

[Glorelendil]

My other concern is that low level characters will have serious trouble learning anything. Average tolerance for a 0 XP party is 2, sometimes just 1.

Time to invoke those traits!

Although it does occur to me that there should be a rule (or at least a house rule) regarding the invocation of traits in Encounters. A cheesy way for more advanced heroes to rack up tons of successes is to first have everybody invoke a trait for an autosuccess, and then start rolling normally. Or wait until Tolerance is almost consumed and then everybody invokes traits. Either way, it stinks of roquefort.

Maybe it's an either/or choice for each character? You can either get one autosuccess, or you can roll common skills. Not both.

[jamesrbrown]

A few questions, James:

Does the use of a Trait count as a roll?

Yes. The invoking of a Trait is good for 1 normal success; nothing grande. Although, I generally limit players to 1 invocation per Encounter. This came up during the Gen Con adventure this year.

You mention that the Tolerance indicates the number of Personality or Custom skill rolls allowed. Only those? I mean, if a spokesman introduces the group with one succesful Courtesy, and during the Interaction Phase another (or the same, it doesn't matter) player want to expose a point with, lets say, Battle (Vocation), I guess it should also count towards the maximum rolls, doesn't it?

I mentioned Personality or Custom skills because those are the ones generally used during encounters. Although, if a player wanted to use any other skill creatively and it made sense with the situation at hand, I would allow it. So, yes, any skill use counts toward successes. In fact, in Nightmares of Angmar, I include an encounter with the Hill-men chief that has the spokesman make a Weapon skill roll to impress him.

And, as far as I understand it, Tolerance becomes the maximum number of rolls that count towards successes, right? But not the total number of rolls allowed. Once the group has already rolled their first 3 rolls (if Tolerance is 3), they can continue asking questions or proposing things with skill rolls, only that they won't influence the final outcome (although they may gain more information, etc.). Is that right?

Yes. That's definitely how I use it. Rolls can continue (if you want them to), but not count toward successes. The preliminary roll of Insight, by the way, does not count toward successes. That's just to observe and see if you can gain any bonus dice to use during the encounter.

My other concern is that low level characters will have serious trouble learning anything. Average tolerance for a 0 XP party is 2, sometimes just 1.

Again, for me this makes perfect sense. An inexperienced group of adventurers is not going to do as well when speaking with the Wise. Tolerance modifiers can be given, however, for more favourable conditions. For my groups, modifiers have made a 1 or 2 Tolerance very rare. It usually lands somewhere between 3 and 4.

Also, remember that even if a group gets only 1 success, it is considered a narrow success.

[jamesrbrown]

The Loremaster is advised to keep track of successes during the Introduction and Interaction phases of an encounter yes, but...published adventures have already shown that sometimes failing even one roll during the Introduction keeps them from moving forward (regardless of Tolerance rating), and sometimes using certain skills automatically fail without even rolling (based on who's being encountered). These are not house-rules, they are just written in, showing Loremasters how to customise their own encounters using the rules as a guideline. Also, sometimes there is no need for Introductions based on the story at hand.

Okay, back to Tolerance limiting the number of rolls counted for success. With this is mind, in cases where the entire company would like to introduce themselves rather than having a spokesman, but the Tolerance is less than the number of player-heroes, have each player-hero roll to introduce himself, but only count it as one roll (like a combined action) and only count up to 3 successes from among the group toward the total, with each failure canceling out a success.

For example, the Tolerance rating is set at 4 and there are 6 player-heroes in the company. They encounter the Elven-king and would each like to introduce themselves. They all make a roll, and get a combined 6 successes with 2 failures. Their introductions only count as 1 roll toward the Tolerance and they only count 3 successes of their 4 (2 were canceled by failures) toward the evaluation. Afterwards, they will get 3 skill rolls during the Interaction.

During the Interaction phase, you can easily build an encounter around the number of rolls that will count toward success. Write out what the Loremaster character's responses or questions will be for each possible skill, along with suggestions for the player-heroes. So, if the player-heroes use Awe to impress the character with their bearing, he will say such and such in reply and then ask a question, etc. If they decide instead to explain how they will accomplish something using Persuade, he will make a further suggestion that they can interact with, etc.

This is especially helpful when guiding new players through an encounter.

[Angelalex242]

Hmmm.

I guess I kinda see the wise as 'very high level people.' Maybe it's just me, but I often have time to help a newbie out when they seem to need it. Indeed, I don't even expect them to know what question to ask, most of the time. On the other hand, I expect people who do know or should know to, well, know.

I guess it's kind of an inverse tolerance, where it's easier to be kind to the new guy.

[jamesrbrown]

I understand what you're saying Angelalex242. To apply your thoughts, I would simply tier the encounter boons down slightly. For example, if I had a company of inexperienced adventurers and they were meeting Gandalf, who really wanted to teach them something, yet I still thought the scene should rely on their efforts in some way, I would scale back the needed successes.

Maybe something like this:

0-1 Success
2-3 Great Success
4+ Extraordinary Success

[Rich H]

Increases in Tolerance can also be used to do this too or if there was one or two particular characters within the fellowship that the NPC looked upon favourable, for whatever reason, you could modifier their TNs when interacting.

There are lots of options to tweak.

I used the Encounter rules to do something a little different within What Lies Beneath; the adventure I wrote in Ruins of the North. It demonstrates how they can be used to support and enhance social interactions in different ways to those in the revised rules showing LMs that other options can be used.

[Glorelendil]

I believe there are precedents for what Rich is describing. "So-and-so needs the heroes' help, so increase Tolerance by 1" sort of thing.

[doctheweasel]

I'm curious, how many of you are using Encounters as something that has to be successful or the story can't advance? It seems to me RAW makes it much too easy to be successful, but that could be because they are built around characters needing to succeed. The baseline of 2 successes for a full success is ridiculously small, especially when compared to needing 3+ failures (for even slightly experienced PCs) to fail.

I'm much happier with more difficult Encounters, but that could be because I'm running DoM as a sandbox and failure is always a perfectly good option that doesn't hamper the narrative (indeed, it sometimes improves it).