Wounds and Adversaries

[Kullervo]

Bit of a concern about combat - yesterday our LM ran us through the beginnings of what I -think- is Darkening of Mirkwood, but I could be wrong. In any case, we have 3 NPC dwarves with us, one of them being Balin, and after we were going to go to sleep, our lookout spotted a stone troll who is (as per LM) not at his 100%. Prepared ourselves for a hard fight, elf is terrified (Eye on a Fear test), all the ranged chars missed the Troll... We think this'll be amazingly tough, with the 4 PCs and 3 NPCs.

Thats when it goes wrong... My dwarf does Intimidate Foe, gets a Great Success, and drains all of the troll's Hate. Balin gets a Piercing Blow in on a Great success and an 18. Troll rolls a 16 with his 3d armor... Troll takes wound. At that point, we thought that he requires two wounds, so we continued. Last person to go was the Lookout, she rolls a Piercing Blow on her bow. Regular success, but its a 19. Troll rolls a 17. Troll dies.

LM seemed a bit disappointed - I mean the troll didnt even get a turn to attack, we just destroyed it without any real struggle. So the question is, other that Great Size... anything that sort of modifies this? Or is it always 1 Wound/0 Endurance = dead? Because then things theoretically become almost too simple...

[zedturtle]

Bit of a concern about combat - yesterday our LM ran us through the beginnings of what I -think- is Darkening of Mirkwood, but I could be wrong. In any case, we have 3 NPC dwarves with us, one of them being Balin, and after we were going to go to sleep, our lookout spotted a stone troll who is (as per LM) not at his 100%. Prepared ourselves for a hard fight, elf is terrified (Eye on a Fear test), all the ranged chars missed the Troll... We think this'll be amazingly tough, with the 4 PCs and 3 NPCs.

This sounds the beginning of the Marsh Bell, with modifications. The adventure is balanced for four PCs... adding 3 NPCs (that it sounds like the LM treated as full PCs in the combat) is almost double what is expected.

Thats when it goes wrong... My dwarf does Intimidate Foe, gets a Great Success, and drains all of the troll's Hate.

This sounds legit. (for the weakened Troll)

Balin gets a Piercing Blow in on a Great success and an 18. Troll rolls a 16 with his 3d armor... Troll takes wound.

For this to make sense, Balin would need to have rolled a Gandalf (if he wielded an Axe) on the Feat Die. Or he would need a 10 or a Gandalf on the Feat Die if he had a Mattock. Importantly, the 18 comes from the weapon, not from what he rolled to-hit.

At that point, we thought that he requires two wounds, so we continued. Last person to go was the Lookout, she rolls a Piercing Blow on her bow. Regular success, but its a 19. Troll rolls a 17. Troll dies.

There's no weapon that has an Injury value of 19 (especially a Bow). So I think that 17 would have saved against any regular Bow attack.

LM seemed a bit disappointed - I mean the troll didnt even get a turn to attack, we just destroyed it without any real struggle. So the question is, other that Great Size... anything that sort of modifies this? Or is it always 1 Wound/0 Endurance = dead? Because then things theoretically become almost too simple...

Yes, 1 Wound equals Dead for most adversaries. But remember you have to get a special value on the Feat Die and then the enemy has to fail their Protection Test against the weapon's Injury value. It happens, but not all the time.

Incidentally, this troll fight is known for being very swingy... it really depends on whether the heroes have good luck or not... there have been others who complained that the game was impossibly difficult because the fight went the other way for them.

[Glorelendil]

Just to (hopefully) clarify what Zed wrote:
1) If the Feat die is equal to or above the "Edge" value of the weapon, then it's a Pierce. So a 10 or Gandalf with a Sword, for example.
2) If it's a Pierce, the TN to avoid the Wound is equal to the Injury of the weapon. 16 for a Sword, 20 for a Great Axe, 14 for a Bow, etc. There are some things that can increase those values, but if you're just starting out there probably aren't any modifiers to those numbers.

So Edge & Injury are the two key numbers for each weapon type.

[Elmoth]

Definitively modified marsh bell

The adventure is balanced for four PCs... adding 3 NPCs (that it sounds like the LM treated as full PCs in the combat) is almost double what is expected.

This. Basically you are bringing double the firepower (the dwarves sound like they might have weapon improvements) without modifying the opposition. No wonder it was an easy combat. Still, you were quite lucky with the rolls getting so many wounding shots in a single round. Combining the 2 factors means no real hassle.

[Rich H]

Sounds like your LM could be running my old "To Journey's End and the Eagles' Eyrie" adventure and if so the battle with the troll is only the first combat encounter on a very long and dangerous road - you should therefore be thankful that you rolled three exceptional results, back to back, in order to dispose of the troll so easily. Even with the three NPCs being run in the way your LM ran them (ie, as fully contributing characters) that battle would usually be more taxing for beginning characters; although it isn't meant to leave a fellowship in disarray.

However, from some of your descriptions of the combat it sounds like your LM is making some errors regarding the injury ratings of weapons (eg, the bow value of 19) which looked like fairly critical factors in the battle too. If he's making errors here then it's also possible he could have made more which would impact on the outcome of any combat where they cam into play.

[Falenthal]

Thats when it goes wrong... My dwarf does Intimidate Foe, gets a Great Success, and drains all of the troll's Hate. Balin gets a Piercing Blow in on a Great success and an 18. Troll rolls a 16 with his 3d armor... Troll takes wound. At that point, we thought that he requires two wounds, so we continued. Last person to go was the Lookout, she rolls a Piercing Blow on her bow. Regular success, but its a 19. Troll rolls a 17. Troll dies.

When I LMed "The Marsh Bell", the Troll also went down after just two rounds. I think he didn't even hurt any PC, and there were just 4 of them.

In your example, I think there are a few reasons why the Troll went down so quickly:
1) Great rolls, way above average for newbies (which is the kind of heroes the adventure is thought for). With just 2 skill ranks in the primary weapon (3 at most), Great Successes are really rare.
2) Nice idea Intimidating the Troll before anything else. Draining his Hate leaves the beast Weary, and therefore his protection rolls become lower.
3) Some mistakes by the LM. The Edges he used seem a little high, but I also think that he didn't count the rolls of the Troll as Weary (1s, 2s and 3s count as 0s).

Well, just let your LM take out another Troll soon and see how it goes this second time.

[aramis]

Great Size is a rather nasty thing - requiring either (a) Wounded & at Zero End or (b) wounded twice to take out...
Horrible Strength is also pretty nasty. It can add to the endurance loss...

It feels like your LM may have mishandled the troll mechanically. But not a certainty.

But also - the adventure was written for 1E, not 2E, and the ranged fire opening volley was slightly less effective. Further, the extra NPC's seem to have been special snowflakes, on top of it all.

That said, I had a party with two elves who took out a stone troll in the opening volley... but they had spent hope to invoke piercing blow via Stinging Arrow. So it's not too difficult. Especially with the extra NPCs.

[Kullervo]

Thanks for all your advice guys! Yeah, it wasnt the LM who was mistaken, it was me remembering the Edge ratings wrong. Balin did roll a Gandalf rune, though I dont recall exactly what axe he had - I am fairly certain it was a 20 Edge one. As for our female woodsman, she also got a piercing blow, but THAT I think we did mistake, since her Edge was lower, so the troll would have lasted a little longer. In regards to the dwarves, they generally dont do anything to assist in any way (although Balin offered to act as Guide, I took that role instead). I guess the LM figured that for combat they'd help out.

Well, regardless, for a while its just our beginning adventure so we all get comfortable with the system - I dont think we'll be getting Exp or AP for this one, maybe some Treasure, so no worries. Main thing we wanted to know was if the '1 wound per kill' would make everything too easy combat wise - but I guess if you're swarmed by orcs, its not nearly 'easy'... And vs the bigger stuff, well, they have a 2 wound limit and hit harder. And those that arent giant and are still super-tough (Nazgul for example), well... I guess they have immunity to non-bane weapons anyway.

[Elmoth]

One opponent against a whole party is quite the rare event. if you outnumber the opposition, they tend to be real tough, but it is more common to be on equal footing our outnumbered than the opposite. Do not take that combat as reference or you are going to be smacked real hard in the future

Take inmind that IIRC you said you spent Hope to achieve those fantastic results. That is a dwindling commodity, so you will not be able to do that so commonly either.

Cheers,
Xavi

[Kullervo]

Yeah, we had our first 'real' combat. I got hit a LOT. Out of the 34 Endurance I had, I was reduced to 14 by the end of it (partially because an NPC, being surprised, had a Great success at throwing an axe at me. I rolled a Sauron on awareness as I was breaking down the door they barricaded.) I am actually really happy we didnt touch that treasure horde... We'd have likely died.