New Loremaster, Combat issues.

[Otaku-sempai]

If I had players who ALL were in either defensive or rearward in a given turn, I'd give the enemy the initiative instead, but that's into houserule territory.

I can only think of exceptionally rare circumstances that would allow all the Heroes to assume a rearward stance. They would have to be at the top of a defended wall or someplace else that can't be easily breached by an enemy to allow them to attack the company in close quarters.

[Glorelendil]

If I had players who ALL were in either defensive or rearward in a given turn, I'd give the enemy the initiative instead, but that's into houserule territory.

I can only think of exceptionally rare circumstances that would allow all the Heroes to assume a rearward stance. They would have to be at the top of a defended wall or someplace else that can't be easily breached by an enemy to allow them to attack the company in close quarters.

I think he meant that all heroes were in a combination of defensive and rearward (e.g. 4 defensive, 2 rearward) not all one or the other.

[Otaku-sempai]

I think he meant that all heroes were in a combination of defensive and rearward (e.g. 4 defensive, 2 rearward) not all one or the other.

Thanks. That would make more sense. At the same time I can, as stated before, imagine rare circumstances that would allow for exceptions to the rule of RAW.

[aramis]

I think he meant that all heroes were in a combination of defensive and rearward (e.g. 4 defensive, 2 rearward) not all one or the other.

Thanks. That would make more sense. At the same time I can, as stated before, imagine rare circumstances that would allow for exceptions to the rule of RAW.

Of Leaves and Stewed Hobbit has one that works for that - assuming the players happen to fortify a couple areas immediately prior to the assault...

[mirdanis]

Hi Arinbor, welcome to the wonderful world of The One Ring!

I started Lore-mastering a One Ring game about a year and a half ago, with little previous One Ring experience under my belt, and I'm still working on running smoother combats. I have had the exact same problem you did, with my party hunkering down in Defensive or Rearward and having a 30-minute whiff-fest with their opponents. I've been generous to my players, and they have some fairly high Parry ratings. Recently, I did two things that made a big difference to my ability to hit the players: I beefed up the opponents' combat ratings, and I started using their special abilities, favored combat skills, and Hate points unstintingly.

[SPOILER ALERT for "A Darkness in the Marshes" from Tales from Wilderland]

We just finished "A Darkness in the Marshes" in Tales from Wilderland, and the party ended up facing Ghor the Despoiler and his two bodyguards, all mounted on Wargs, before they got back to Mountain Hall. Ghor and his Warg-Leader were already pretty bad@$$, so the only thing I did was change the Edge on his Scimitar from 10 to 9 and raised the Injury rating from 14 to 16. That made it a little more likely that I could Pierce the players, and a little more difficult for them to avoid Wounds. I also decided to spend Ghor's and the Warg's Hate points activating the Horrible Strength, Savage Assault and Hideous Toughness special abilities, as well as an Attribute Level bonus for Ghor to hit with his Heavy Scimitar. And it worked! I kicked the party's butts! Two of the PCs ended up Wounded, one of them finished that combat with 6 Endurance points left, and a third only avoided a Wound by spending a point of Hope. I've come to the conclusion that enemy combatants should rarely be eliminated from combat with Hate points still in their holsters. Of course, I also rolled really well for that combat, so that might be another tip - have a little talk with your dice before the combat and ask them not to embarrass you this time!

I've also taken to reviewing opponents and their special abilities before a session and making sure they fit the circumstances of the combat. Sometimes enemies have special abilities that are irrelevant to the way the combat happens; when that becomes apparent, I often switch that ability out with something else. For example, you might be planning a combat between your party and some Orcs. Orcs typically have the special ability Hate Sunlight, which causes them to lose 1 Hate for every round that they're exposed to sunlight. But if you know the combat is going to take place at night, you might want to substitute it with, for example, Denizen of the Dark, which gives them a x2 Attribute level boost to all rolls while in darkness.

Hope these tips help! Ultimately, time and experience will lead you to knowing what's a good balance point for your PCs vs combatants.

--Mirdanis

[Glorelendil]

I've been generous to my players, and they have some fairly high Parry ratings.

Generous as in "not according to RAW"? I'm curious what you gave them....

[Majestic]

I've come to the conclusion that enemy combatants should rarely be eliminated from combat with Hate points still in their holsters. Of course, I also rolled really well for that combat, so that might be another tip - have a little talk with your dice before the combat and ask them not to embarrass you this time!

Agreed about leaving Hate points "still in their holsters". Those adversaries can't take them with them when they're buried!

As for dice misbehaving, I recommend

[Robin Smallburrow]

Some more combat tips:

Vary the types of combats so that the Fellowship can be surprised, or lose the initiative, or be heavily outnumbered. One thing I discovered from running combats in TOR is that the side with the initiative often wins the day. I ran the identical combat with two different groups ( an equal number of Attercops vs PC's), but in one the Attercops successfully surprised the PC's and thus had initiative - in that combat one PC was knocked unconsicous and two others got Wounded, whereas the identical combat with the group who were not surprised they made short work of the Attercops.

Where the Fellowship is outnumbered you can make use of abilities such as Great Leap to target PC's in Rearward stance.or be targeted by archers. The main think is that most adversaries should 'know' how to fight to make use of their abilities - so do so!

The other thing is that a Fellowship that acts like a Fellowship (sharing of dice, using combat tasks etc.) will do better than one that doesn't -as a LM i am more lenient with players who are acting heroically.

Robin S.

Robin S.

[Arinbor]

Sorry guys, havent managed to get on over the Xmas break.
Thanks for all the information and replies! Good to see a great community here.
Ill implement everything I have learned here and see how it goes!
Thanks again!
Happy New Year

[mirdanis]

I've been generous to my players, and they have some fairly high Parry ratings.

Generous as in "not according to RAW"? I'm curious what you gave them....

Hi Glorelendil, nice to meet you! How exciting to interact with one of the celebrities of the forum!

None of my players had ever played TOR before, but they've all been in various other RPGs in the past. They put together a very intellectual party - we had 2 Scholars, and 3 out of the original 4 players chose Backgrounds with high Wits. Our Elven Scholar's player left the game last summer, sadly, but a new player came along about the same time who created a Hobbit Treasure-Hunter with high Wits - and he chose Small Folk. So their Parry numbers were already high because of that.

I would say I've been generous to my players in three main ways. First, they've had a relatively large number of Fellowship phases in between adventures, and I have allowed them (with some restrictions) more than one Undertaking per Fellowship phase, depending on what they wanted to do and where I wanted to take the campaign.

Second, they possess a relatively large number of items of superior war gear among them - about one per character. First, my Woodman Wanderer, after returning Wolf-Biter to Woodland Hall, ended up being its next bearer - and I statted it up pretty nice. I tempted the player by telling him that if he put his XP for the next adventure into Valour and beefed up his Long-Hafted Axe skill, I would create an in-game opportunity for his player to prove himself worthy of the legendary weapon - and he accepted. I also wrote an adventure in between ""Of Kinstrife" and "Those Who Tarry" that took my party to the Beacon-Tower along with Bofri, and in a hidden treasury there they found a cache of really sweet loot, which I had great fun putting together! I knew this would be my only real chance in the TfW campaign to give the other players superior items, so I took it. I didn't go overboard, of course - the chest of gold coins contained 75 of them, not 30,000. As I expressed to my players at the beginning of the campaign, Smaug's mile-wide hoard of gold 10 feet deep in the movies was visually dazzling, but quite unrealistic - gold must be rare for it to retain value. Bofri, of course, claimed the really valuable stuff ::coughmithrilingotscough:: on behalf of King Dain, but he rewarded each of the companions with a weapon, item of armor, or Common skill-boosting magical jewel I had tailored to the party members from the Magical Treasure tables in Rivendell.

And Third, related to First, I've probably been overly generous with awarding them Experience points and Advancement points. The way I do this is definitely not according to RAW. I didn't especially like the mechanic of awarding Advancement points for successful die rolls, since (as I believe someone else has pointed out in these forums) it rewards the players merely for rolling dice, and for rolling well - not something they have much control over. I also thought the "three dots = 1 AP" mechanic was unnecessarily confusing and cumbersome. I started out awarding APs whenever someone used a Common skill in an exceptional way, but soon I began to forget to do that, and I also noticed that the more extroverted and experienced players were advancing faster than those less so. I knew that wouldn't do, so then I just started doling them out at the end of each adventure along with Experience Points. Most recently, I awarded them 10 XP and 10 AP at the end of "Darkness in the Marshes", but that was to cover "Those Who Tarry" as well, since they had no Fellowship phase between those two adventures - it was straight from one to the other.

So my party might be a little more advanced than some others at this stage of the campaign, but they're not tremendously so. They've had one 'extracurricular' adventure, and now it seems they're about to have another. Now that they've found out about the Chain in "Darkness in the Marshes", and Radagast's little more knowledgeable than they are, they're determined to go visit Saruman at Isengard to Search for Answers. That Rohan setting supplement sure would come in handy right now, Cubicle Seven!

--Mirdanis