Erebor - The Lonely Mountain

[Glorelendil]

Agree with Rich/Zed. I think it's a choice of Cultural Reward, Famous Arms & Armour, or one of the new options. However, I suspect additional Qualities could still be added to one of the new ones when Valour is raised.

One nice side-effect of the new options is to create an additional incentive to take cultural rewards that are not weapons.

[Rich H]

Agree with Rich/Zed. I think it's a choice of Cultural Reward, Famous Arms & Armour, or one of the new options. However, I suspect additional Qualities could still be added to one of the new ones when Valour is raised.

Yep, agreed. Just to be clear, I was taking about Cutural Rewards (eg, Axe of Az, etc) and not Qualities (eg, Grievous, Keen, etc) in my last response and think Zed was too.

[Dunkelbrink]

Clearly broken.

C7 is a tiny company and we all know the names and faces of the people in it, and they all actively participate in these forums. So gratuitous stuff like the above reads like a disparagement flung at a friend, or at least flung at the hard work of a friend. There are so many ways to express that sentiment that wouldn't be denigrating.

Oh, didn't mean it at all that way, sorry if it came out as harsh. As I have stated in many places I find Cubicle 7's work outstanding, and I am aware that they read the forums to mutual benefit. You shouldn't take this as a disparagement, but a bit of genuine worry about introducing a Enchanted quality that according to RAW would be the by far most powerful quality, beyond what is reasonable imo. Since it's not explained further in Erebor and the Poison rules in the core book seem to be written with only heroes in mind I was wondering about the thoughts behind it and if other people have read it the same way.

[zedturtle]

Thanks for the clarification; I had stepped away earlier myself to avoid upset feelings.

I think it's something that (if it appears in my games at all) will come attached to a powerful Curse and will incur suitable Shadow / Corruption tests.

Perhaps a way to 'fix' it would be to require a Great or Extraordinary success to activate the Venom (perhaps giving up the bonus damage in the process). It would still be powerful against non-Great Sized enemies, but a G/E hit by an axe would have likely dropped them anyways. For Great Size adversaries, if you do give up the bonus damage that gives some balance to it. Also, one might clarify that an adversary can only become Poisoned once in a combat (i.e. a regular piercing blow, or reduction to 0 Endurance is needed to defeat the enemy).

[damiller]

For me in my game I would run it like this:

If a PC uses poison they get a shadow point, and of course they can have an insta kill with it (in most cases). I would consider the use of poison very evil, and something only Sauron and his minions would use.

If my PCs want to go all murderhobo on everything they see, and kill it easily they can pay the price of very high shadow points.

Fortunately I have not had that problem yet.

d

[T.S. Luikart]

It's amusing how you guys read these things and immediately assume player-heroes will get their hands on them and use them against adversaries.

First off - Loremasters dictate what is and isn't, in their games.

Second off - Venomed weapons come from a time when the Free-folk were shanking each other.

And third - some clarifying language does seem to have disappeared - it was my original intention that Poisoned adversaries become Weary.

And finally - I think a Loremaster is well within rights to suggest that using such a weapon will cause a slow (but steady) accumulation of Shadow points, I certainly implied that in the description...

[zedturtle]

And third - some clarifying language does seem to have disappeared - it was my original intention that Poisoned adversaries become Weary.

Now that's an interesting design space, in that it's a way to make enemies Weary without draining Hate. Interesting.

[Falenthal]

Second off - Venomed weapons come from a time when the Free-folk were shanking each other.

Just let me get one thing clear before moving on:
It was the dwarves' fault and they were the ones that began the beating.
And they used poisoned weapons, small twisted ugly creatures.

[Kullervo]

Hrrm. Well, reading the book, and a new question comes up! Me and my friends have discussed this, but I think this is a formatting thing, or a wording thing, vs an actual error.

Basically page 32, when it describes the procedure for Dwarven Crafting:

The first time that the smith chooses to gain Shadow for Craftsmanship points the hero becomes driven...

The next paragraph has 2 bulletspoints about the benefits of obsession(And here I assume it is referring to being Driven), one about reduced TN, the second point talks about the 'first time you roll a gandalf on craft that time, you modify the item numeric value by 1, and regain 1 Hope'

So far so good. The question comes from the example listed on the next page, where a dwarf rolls his dice, gets a Great Success for 2 Craft Points, then spends 2 Exp for 2 more Craft Points, putting him at 4. Then the NEXT phase he take the same undertaking, he rolls a Gandalf plus a success, and this makes him rise to 5 Craft Points (normal), and also raise the Axe damage to 6, from 5, due to modifying it by 1 as a result of Gandalf.

Thing is, the second bullet point under 'benefits of obsession' does not mention anything about it only being for Driven Smiths. The first one specifically does. The example makes you think you are to interpret it that way. Another person I know understood this as 'the example has a mistake, and the Gandalf thing is only for Driven smiths.'

[Corvo]

I see the usual suspects appearing in the inbox.

Thank you for working in the wee hours of the weekend


Great book.
I skimmed through it, and especially liked the Undertaking about visiting the Ravens of the Mountain
Still, I got a doubt: Dark for Dark Business (Grey Mts. virtue, page 105)... isn't it too weak? Or am I missing something?
Beornings and Woodmen got similar virtues, but far more versatile, apparently.