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Blubbo Baggins wrote:Great idea Falenthal. Probably overpowered, but I like how elegant it is. Maybe it could still be a range, like C7 suggests, but the minimum goes up. So the range would be +1 - +6 from the beginning, but the minimum would be Half your Valour score rounded down? Not sure I like that better, but it would be nice for the LM to be able to say, "You're encountering Galadriel, who really doesn't care about a fancy piece of Dwarven armor...so the bonus is only a small #".

Part of the problem, though, comes back to the fact that Beornings are just OP. Noble Armor, and Honeycakes...too good.

Maybe the Dwarf-wrought Quality is so low as to not stack too high with other Rewards and Vitures that also add to Tolerance (Beorning's Noble Armour, Lake-towner's Trader's Savvy,...).

But if you want it to be a little higher than it is now, maybe add the lesser of your Wisdom or Valour. Although the range is still 1-6, it will seldom (if ever!) reach a bonus of 6.

Rich H wrote:I thought the same but it's easy to 'tempt' the players into taking a permanent Shadow point by offering a few more Craftsmanship points - perhaps 3, maybe even a little more.

Hmm.. Well that just makes you accomplish it faster, and then in that case, you got less chances for a Gandalf, which is the reason you took the Shadow to begin with - I mean, I'd rather just wait and do it with successes or even exp, since I can just grab more of that later. But that Shadow point... My personal thought was, maybe keep it Permanent, still 1 point, but have obsession not restrict you from other undertakings - instead, maybe it ups the TN for appropriate common skills - for example, Awareness, social stuff, riddle - kind of to reflect you being completely distracted and thinking of something else. Then you can still stretch it out and hope for that Gandalf.

Alternatively, keep the whole thing with the permanent points, but maybe the Gandalf requirement is lowered every new Undertaking - so if you last like 5 Undertakings, still not be done, you only need to roll a 6 or more. Have it lower by one. Though... I am iffy on this, because Gandalf rune is iconic and it feels like diluting it... But depending on it when you spent a perma shadow on that chance is sad.

Rich H wrote:I actually think it's better for starting characters, or more accurately characters with lower weapon skill ratings. Someone with 4 or more in a skill isn't going to really need that reroll, as their total will likely be high enough to hit the TN or they'll have the required success for a called shot, but for someone with just a 2 or 3 in the skill - that could make lots of difference for them.

The only person who has over 4 dice on a weapon is our archer... She runs around with that Greatbow, which she maxed out with Fell, Grievous, and its already that bow the Woodsmen have, so she ends up doing ridiculous levels of damage - and she bought all 6 weapon levels. So to her, she probably would have gotten this if she could, instead of Grievous, since if she gets a called shot, very little survives. Apart from that, the only thing is, both Valor and Weapon are earned with Exp, so its an overlap. Though, if they have enough dice already, it's probably more worth it to get something like Keen, Grievous, or Fell since they're all pretty great... Or another Reward!

Falenthal wrote:Maybe the Dwarf-wrought Quality is so low as to not stack too high with other Rewards and Vitures that also add to Tolerance (Beorning's Noble Armour, Lake-towner's Trader's Savvy,...).

My problem was really just that a man-made item that is recent is better than an old enchantment made by dwarves - purely a lore thing. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe lore needs to step back anyway since the dwarven thing is available to everyone.

Kullervo wrote: My problem was really just that a man-made item that is recent is better than an old enchantment made by dwarves - purely a lore thing. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe lore needs to step back anyway since the dwarven thing is available to everyone.

I understand the concern and agree with it: is as if an Enchanted Quality that improved -let's say- Damage would be worse than a Quality that could be gained by increasing Valour.

Switch the bonuses? Make Noble Armour increase the Tolerance by 2 (for example) and the Dwarf-wrought Quality increase by a plain 3. None get too modified this way, but keep better with your lore notion.

Falenthal wrote:

Kullervo wrote: My problem was really just that a man-made item that is recent is better than an old enchantment made by dwarves - purely a lore thing. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe lore needs to step back anyway since the dwarven thing is available to everyone.

I understand the concern and agree with it: is as if an Enchanted Quality that improved -let's say- Damage would be worse than a Quality that could be gained by increasing Valour.

Switch the bonuses? Make Noble Armour increase the Tolerance by 2 (for example) and the Dwarf-wrought Quality increase by a plain 3. None get too modified this way, but keep better with your lore notion.

True enough, its a simple fix. Everything, in the end, is LM fiat. Dont want Venomed weapons, dont have them, dont like Journey rules, alter em, dont like Called Shots, change em... Your table, your rules. The only reason I say this stuff here is to make sure its not just me being unreasonable and biased, its good to hear what other fans of this game think.

Yeah, I have a significant number of tiny modification done to the game just because "it doesn't feel right that X has a better score than Y", even though the modification is by 1 point. But I feel more relaxed when I know that Iron-hill Dwarves aren't better at Stealth than Mirkwood elves, even if noone at the table is playing a ME or an IHD.

Blubbo Baggins wrote: Noble Armor provides a fixed +3 Tolerance, while this Enchanted "Dwarf-wrought" only provides +1 - +3 depending on the NPC... If I were running a game I would definitely add another ability to that Quality.

Any ideas on how to improve Dwarf-wrought so that it is worthy of being an Enchanted Quality? Or do you think it is good as is?

I was reading the Beorning's Noble Armour for other reasons and found this detail:
Noble Armour increases by +3 the beorning's Valour or Wisdom to calculate Tolerance, not the overall Tolerance of the group.
Dwarf-wrought rises the overall Tolerance by +1 to +3.

Example: The company is composed of a beorning with Noble Armour and a rating of 2 in Valour, and a Wood-man with a rating of 4 in Valour. They have an Encounter with someone who favours Valour. Usually, the Tolerance of the Encounter would have been 4 (highest Valour score in the company). With the Noble Armour, the beorning counts as having a 5 in Valour and, therefore, the Tolerance of the Encounter is 5.

The same situation, with a Dwarf-wrought object, would lead to the Encounter having a Tolerance of 4 (highest Valour) + the corresponding increase in Tolerance due to the Dwar-wrought quality: from a minimum of 5 to a maximum of 7.

Other numbers and situations might still make the Noble Armour better than Dwarf-wrought quality, but it's interesting and important to know that they are bonuses to different ratings.

Still, I might limit the Noble Armour bonus to only increase the Valour rating of the beorning, not the Wisdom one. And change the name to Warg Pelt Armour. Makes more sense to me.

Falenthal wrote:I was reading the Beorning's Noble Armour for other reasons and found this detail:
Noble Armour increases by +3 the beorning's Valour or Wisdom to calculate Tolerance, not the overall Tolerance of the group.
Dwarf-wrought rises the overall Tolerance by +1 to +3.

Example: The company is composed of a beorning with Noble Armour and a rating of 2 in Valour, and a Wood-man with a rating of 4 in Valour. They have an Encounter with someone who favours Valour. Usually, the Tolerance of the Encounter would have been 4 (highest Valour score in the company). With the Noble Armour, the beorning counts as having a 5 in Valour and, therefore, the Tolerance of the Encounter is 5.

The same situation, with a Dwarf-wrought object, would lead to the Encounter having a Tolerance of 4 (highest Valour) + the corresponding increase in Tolerance due to the Dwar-wrought quality: from a minimum of 5 to a maximum of 7.

Other numbers and situations might still make the Noble Armour better than Dwarf-wrought quality, but it's interesting and important to know that they are bonuses to different ratings.

Still, I might limit the Noble Armour bonus to only increase the Valour rating of the beorning, not the Wisdom one. And change the name to Warg Pelt Armour. Makes more sense to me.

Good point, and a subtle distinction that could be quite important.

I calculate each players tolerance individually and apply the highest value among the players who take part in the encounter as Tolerance, so the Noble Armour wont matter in Dale where our Barding has Standing 4...
Had to do it like that to get reasonable social encounters and no one complains.

Not sure I will ever introduce the Dwarven Made enchantment, because Tolerance is always high and I want to challenge them... But it would work fine as written in our game. No need to modify, certainly not increase the power!

Cheers