New Loremaster, new to the game: a few questions

[lucacherstich]

I've just taken the 2014 revised rules and I definitively love them.
We are planning to play, and I'll be the Loremaster, but I have a few doubts.

1) Favoured Skills.
How much does it cost in fellowship phase to make a skill or a weapon skill into a Favoured skill?
I was not able to find the answer

2) Recovering Hope
Please, tell me if I'm wrong or if I misunderstood:
- Hope is recovered in game by spending Fellowship points.
- Hope is NOT automatically recovered at the end of adventures
- Hope is recovered (1pt) through Fellowship focus at the end of sessions/adventures.
- there is no other way to recover hope?????

3)What's the point in spending fellowship phase in a Sanctuary????
I've only understood that spending the end of the year in a sanctuary make you possibly lose some Standing.
What's good in wasting fellowship phase there?

4) How many phase per year?
I know one can do as he pleases in a game...but how is this game supposed to normally be?
I'm used to the pendragon-style 1 adventure/1 winter phase per year.
So I suppose that we can do 1 adventure phase/1fellowship phase per year, so that every fellowship will be during the end of the year.
Am I wrong?

Please, help me!
I'm sure all these things are obvious to you, but I'm a newbie.
Thank you all in advance.

[Falenthal]

I've just taken the 2014 revised rules and I definitively love them.
We are planning to play, and I'll be the Loremaster, but I have a few doubts.

Welcome to TOR, and hope you enjoy it as much as us!

1) Favoured Skills.
How much does it cost in fellowship phase to make a skill or a weapon skill into a Favoured skill?
I was not able to find the answer

It takes a Virtue (the special ability you can choose when raising your Wisdom with Experience Points) to turn a normal skill into a favourite one. My own advice: Virtues (and Rewards) are limited during a characters development. Gaining a favourite skill is not worth it. There are better options, IMHO.

2) Recovering Hope
Please, tell me if I'm wrong or if I misunderstood:
- Hope is recovered in game by spending Fellowship points.
- Hope is NOT automatically recovered at the end of adventures
- Hope is recovered (1pt) through Fellowship focus at the end of sessions/adventures.
- there is no other way to recover hope?????

Everything's right. Just note that, as the Fellowship focus concerns, the point of Hope is only recovered under certain circumstances (focus not wounded, or poisoned, or captured during the adventure).
You have to understand that Hope is a resource that dwindles during the game. Sometimes characters do retire from the game not because they die, but because their Hope is too low and their Shadow score gets too high. They lose the will to face the Shadow anymore, so to say, and pass the torch to younger heroes (new characters).

3)What's the point in spending fellowship phase in a Sanctuary????
I've only understood that spending the end of the year in a sanctuary make you possibly lose some Standing.
What's good in wasting fellowship phase there?

There are some special undertakings that can only be made in a Sanctuary, or that provide benefits if taken in a Sanctuary.
As for the Standing issue, it works so that spending a Year's End outside of your hometown (Dale for Bardings, Erebor for Dwarves, etc.) makes you lose 1 point in Standing (your social position among your comrades) unless you're willing to pay your Standing in Treasure points. Note that it has nothing to do with being in a Sanctuary or not. A Woodman might have Beorn's House and Rhosgobel as Sanctuaries after a few adventures. If he spends the Year's End at Beorn's House, he'll lose 1 point in Standing (again, his position among other Woodmen). If the Year's End was spent at Rhosgobel, he wouldn't lose any point in Standing, as he is supposed to be with his family and taking care of his duties with the community.
Besides, consider the Undertakings as opportunities for roleplaying (maybe you want to spend your winter with your focus? Or an NPC you met during the adventure phase?), not only for mechanical benefits.

4) How many phase per year?
I know one can do as he pleases in a game...but how is this game supposed to normally be?
I'm used to the pendragon-style 1 adventure/1 winter phase per year.
So I suppose that we can do 1 adventure phase/1fellowship phase per year, so that every fellowship will be during the end of the year.
Am I wrong?

This is the recommended pace for the game. TOR is very influenced by Pendragon (Nepitello is a big fan of Pendragon), so follow your instincts here and you'll be right!
Other options are to do 2 adventures per year, with two Fellowship phases, one after each adventure.
Or do 1 adventure per year, but do 2 Fellowship phases: one of them has to be a Year's End phase.

Note that a Year's End is only a name for a conceptually longer Fellowship phase, the one that specifically takes place at (of course) the end of the year and comprises the winter season. The only difference is that some Undertakings can only be taken during the Year's End phase (only one from the Rivendell supplement, that I can remember). But otherwise it's a normal Fellowship phase.

Please, help me!
I'm sure all these things are obvious to you, but I'm a newbie.
Thank you all in advance.

And ask as much as you want here. Everybody is eager to help someone get into TOR!

[zedturtle]

Swamped at the moment, but check the FAQs in my sig... Hope is hard to recover, but there are special activities (usually Undertakings) that can help regain points. But, as mentioned above, the transitional from a young hero with plenty of Hope to a more experienced hero (higher skills) that is more world-weary is intended.

[Glorelendil]

There's also a Virtue (technically a "Mastery") that you can buy that both adds 2 points to your maximum Hope and resets it to that maximum. It's an awesome one to take at high level if you can milk your points that long; you typically will need to spend Hope less often at high level, so a single "topping off" goes a long way.

[Majestic]

Confidence is the name of that Mastery, and it is indeed a good one. Another example of (one of the rare) ways of recovering Hope is the Undertaking called Visit the Kingstone, from The Heart of the Wild.

Another example of something a sanctuary does for you is when a companion chooses the Undertaking called Heal Corruption during a Fellowship Phase. A hero will get two rolls at a sanctuary, but only get one if they simply return home.

[Deadmanwalking]

Composing and then performing songs (a set of rules for which are found in the Rivendell book) can add to the Fellowship pool and thus also aid in recovering Hope.

Beyond that, yeah, what everyone else said.

[aramis]

To recap hope recovery:

remembering that the maximum rate assumes 1 story = 1 session (which isn't always the case)...

1) Fellowship Pool - limited to one point per session unless hobbits are present, not available to certain races
2) Fellowship Focus - 1 point per session maximum, often less.
3) special fellowship phase activities -
3.1) There and Back Again (Recovers half maximum for taking 1 permanent shadow)
4) buy wisdom to get the virtue that increases maximum hope (one time, resets to increased maximum)
5) special story events
5.1) Seeing Arwen the first time (if Wisdom > Valor)
6) Songs - maximum 1 temporary fellowship point per song per adventure, and then only if the group passes with 1 success level per PC. If the fellowship point isn't used by the end of scene, it's lost... but there's no reason not to use it to recover hope before it goes away.

[zedturtle]

To recap hope recovery:

remembering that the maximum rate assumes 1 story = 1 session (which isn't always the case)...

1) Fellowship Pool - limited to one point per session unless hobbits are present, not available to certain races
2) Fellowship Focus - 1 point per session maximum, often less.
3) special fellowship phase activities -
3.1) There and Back Again (Recovers half maximum for taking 1 permanent shadow)
4) buy wisdom to get the virtue that increases maximum hope (one time, resets to increased maximum)
5) special story events
5.1) Seeing Arwen the first time (if Wisdom > Valor)
6) Songs - maximum 1 temporary fellowship point per song per adventure, and then only if the group passes with 1 success level per PC. If the fellowship point isn't used by the end of scene, it's lost... but there's no reason not to use it to recover hope before it goes away.

Copying from Stormcrow in the thread that I found in the FAQs:

Ways to get Hope

• Spend Fellowship points (Rangers not allowed)
  Keep your Fellowship Focus safe
  Perform the undertaking Visit the Kingstone (from Heart of the Wild)
  Perform the undertaking There and Back Again (from Rivendell) during a Year's End Fellowship phase
  Perform undertaking the Honouring the Fallen (from Rivendell, Rangers only)
  Take the Confidence Mastery
  The Loremaster arbitrarily grants you Hope points as a reward for some in-game event, usually magical

[lucacherstich]

Thank you all, but I still have a few doubts.

There are some special undertakings that can only be made in a Sanctuary, or that provide benefits if taken in a Sanctuary.

Please, let me know if I'm wrong.
As far as I can see, you cannot spend a a Fellowship phase in a place other than your home unless you opened it as a sanctuary.
Correct or not?
Because, if this is correct, I maybe start understanding sanctuaries!

1) Fellowship Pool - limited to one point per session unless hobbits are present, not available to certain races

All the things you say sound good to me but the reference above sounded very odd.
I know that Hobbits raise the Fellowship rating by one (Revised Core Rules 2014 p.62) but I have not found the "ONE Fellowship point/Hope recovery per session" limitation.
Where is it in the Core rules?
I have the 2014 revised book and I've read it only once. So I could just have missed something.

[uhu79]

1) Fellowship Pool - limited to one point per session unless hobbits are present, not available to certain races

This should say "limited to one point per hero unless hobbits are present" (or a Beorning with the famous honey-cakes, they also raise the Fellowship Pool by 1 point)

and for the sanctuaries. No, you can spend your fellowship phases wherever you like. It should be a safe place though because otherwise it would be an adventure wouldn't you agree?