Excessive parry

[bluejay]

Indur makes a great point. Some of the Denizen of the Dark creatures can end up with insane attack bonuses. In Heart of the Wild I see a monster with 3d + 10 in darkness. That gives an average roll of around 25-26 meaning that even Captain Mirkwood needs to stay in Defensive and spend Hope to be reasonably protected.

[Deadmanwalking]

One other thing to consider is that, RAW, you cannot raise your Valour by more than one step in a Fellowship phase. Also, I'd take a look at how much XP you're handing out (unless this player was just hoarding it from many years).

Actually...when you get a magic item, the first Quality is already there (Reinforced in this case), so I think he just raised it once (and got the second Quality, Rune-Scored). That looks like what happened to me, anyway. And seems perfectly legal.

Finally, I do agree with the others... don't take Captain Mirkwood's shield from him, just give him challenges where the shield can't help or is of lesser use. And sometimes just let him be awesome.

Yup. Shields are cool, but they don't save you from everything, and IME (and I play a character with a Great Shield who's had Parry 9 total from day one, and just raised it to 10), the balancing act is tricky as a high Parry character, because Great Shields are heavy, and yet they don't help almost at all against Piercing blows, meaning armor is still a definite priority. As a Woodman he has, what, 25 Endurance at most? Maybe 24? And probably 16 Encumbrance (8 Leather Corslet +5 Great Shield +3 Long-Hafted Axe).

That means he can take one hit without Tengwars without getting Weary (maybe one hit with a Tengwar vs. weak opponents). The second hit Wearies him the vast majority of the time...and his resistance to Injury is mediocre at best. Now, the dog will take a hit for him when an Eye comes up, but that drastically reduces his offense when it happens.

And honestly, making foes Weary helps a high parry guy less than a low Parry one, simply because he'd likely only be hit by rolls where the Weary applies little anyway (ie: rolls where almost all the dice are 4+).

[Andrew]

Start challenging him with things other than enemies. His shield won't do anything against Nazgul who cast Dreadful Spells, or an angry Elf-King demanding to know why he's killed his prize hind, or a bottomless ravine that you fall down if you fail an Athletics test...

[Faeron8]

Thank you all!! You surely gave me some valuable advises: I will keep it as it is, correcting the actual shield bonus, and let his confidence go up, just to find some major enemies

[zedturtle]

Start challenging him with things other than enemies. His shield won't do anything against Nazgul who cast Dreadful Spells, or an angry Elf-King demanding to know why he's killed his prize hind, or bottomless ravine that you fall down if you fail an Athletics test...

I saw that movie... he didn't need a parachute!

[Glorelendil]

Most of all I'd let him enjoy it. He got a really great roll, he has an awesome item, don't try to steal the joy.

That said, there are all kinds of fights where his OP-ness will be mitigated:
1) Multiple opponents with Edge lower than G (or EoS, as the case may be): as soon as the first one scores a Pierce his Hound will be out of action for the fight.
2) Enemies with Deadly Elusiveness will force him into Forward stance.
3) Don't have the trolls attack him in the woods!

[bluejay]

1) Multiple opponents with Edge lower than G (or EoS, as the case may be): as soon as the first one scores a Pierce his Hound will be out of action for the fight.

For clarity, the RAW state that the Hound is out when an adversary rolls an Eye not a Piercing Blow. This is the second time I've seen this come up on the forums recently.

[Faeron8]

Most of all I'd let him enjoy it. He got a really great roll, he has an awesome item, don't try to steal the joy.

That said, there are all kinds of fights where his OP-ness will be mitigated:
1) Multiple opponents with Edge lower than G (or EoS, as the case may be): as soon as the first one scores a Pierce his Hound will be out of action for the fight.
2) Enemies with Deadly Elusiveness will force him into Forward stance.
3) Don't have the trolls attack him in the woods!

Yeah, I forgot to consider enemies abilities, Deadly Elusiveness and Bewilder difficult things for him. And last session they rolled about 25 (!!!) EoS, so I think his Hound won't be affecting too much if they keep being so unlucky

[Andrew]

Our Barding Swordmaster 'tanks' in defensive, but at least once per combat an enemy will roll an EYE and automatically hit him. There's no such thing as invulnerable in The One Ring, no matter how high your Parry.

[Faeron8]

There's no such thing as invulnerable in The One Ring, no matter how high your Parry.

I can definitely see that now, thanks alot! When I created the item I was pretty immerse in the rules, so it looked reasonable, but having a big gap between games made me overrate the parry factor of the combat.