Great Size + Favoured Amour vs Sword

[mica]

Great Orc has great size and 4d favoured armour. Even when weary this often makes putting one down into a grind of throwing the dice and picking them up because no 6's have been rolled long after it has been reduced to 0 endurance. Even when a piercing blow has been made, 7+d12+4d6 (even accounting for weary) means that it average rolls are generally up in the 16's making saves all but guaranteed especially against swords.

While I understand it is a challenge - going on for a further 7+ rounds after being brought to 0 endurance tends to be more frustrating than epic.

Added to which with its favoured attack, there is little chance of avoiding being hit even with defensive stance.

Anyone have suggestions on how to keep it epic?

[Glorelendil]

Sounds pretty epic to me!

They're tough but they do die. Have you LM'd one yet or are you just worried about what might happen?

One way of keeping the troll from killing the party while waiting for the lucky (from the heroes' perspective) roll is to use a common house rule: each round the troll attacks whoever did the most damage to him the previous round.

[Corvo]

Hi Mica.

I agree with your point.
That said, I think that the Great Orc is one of the definitive monsters in TOR. Think Azog and such.
So it's fair that it's so hard to kill, and there is a reason there is the Fell reward: for example, long sword at two hands+fell got an armour roll of 20.

But I think you already knows that, so I will offer another point of view.
Put yourself in the shoes of that Great Orc.
Your armour is good, but hardly impenetrable. You are already tired, and bleeding from a thousand cuts.
And probably you are surrounded by 2-3 Heroes, with maybe an archer peppering you with arrows.
Why would you stick to that fight?
You are gambling your life: every wounding blow got probably 30-40% chance of bypassing your armour.
Do you really think you can best ALL these heroes? It's only a meter of time, and they'll kill you.
Flee.
Flee for your life: Orcs aren't heroes, they are selfish creatures.
And that Orc became a chief being cunning and sly, not being suicidal.
The Great Orc minions are still in the fight? Maybe he'll stick to it, 'cause he got a chance to win.
But as soon he's outnumbered, I think he would flee.

[Rich H]

Great advice, Corvo.

Great Orcs are made for being those recurring campaign villains that are a constant thorn in the side of the player-heroes due to being so damn difficult to kill. They are the survivors of their race.

[zedturtle]

Great points... few enemies should fight to the death, something special needs to be going in order to make that happen (the Gibbet King and the Werewolf of Mirkwood are two examples, in different ways).

When you mention the '6's, I imagine you're thinking of Called Shots with spears? Other than that, archers should be doing Prepared Shot (half the fire rate, but much better chance of the pierce*) and you really need a plucky Hobbit heroine with a King's Blade to take down the big nasty things like Snow-trolls.

[mica]

Some good points. Will have to use the other characteristics of the monsters a bit more - opposed movement:athletics to get away etc

Are there any widely used house rules for armour. Having now played on and off for over four years it is becoming increasingly obvious that armour is little use. It hampers travel, causes weariness while wounds are both rare even for unarmoured and rarely prove a disaster when they do occur. Yet armour does nothing to reduce endurance loss. While I dislike some auto-attrition of all incoming endurance loss, it seems reasonable that they might soak some from big hits.

Something I was thinking was knocking off 1 endurance loss per 5 per armour die.
Leather Shirt (1d) will knock anything over 4 down by 1 point.
Leather Corset (2d) will knock anything over 4 by 1 point and anything over 10 by 2 points.
...
Mail Shirt (5d) >4 =-1, >9=-2, >14=-3, >19=-4, >24=-5

[Glorelendil]

The thing I like about the armour rules the way they are is that it's a totally viable choice to go without armour, or with just a leather shirt/corslet. It's a risk to do so, but it's viable.

If armour *also* mitigated damage then it shifts the equation and it becomes a bad decision to go without armour.

[mica]

I get that and agree up to a point. Currently the benefits seem just feels a little out of balance with the penalties.

Being smacked with a 4by2 in the guts is currently no different for somebody in a cotton vest as somebody with a thick wool jacket over a chain shirt with under padding - seems wrong. While I expect both to be bruised, I would expect less bruising on the armoured person equating to fewer endurance lost.

[Glorelendil]

I get that and agree up to a point. Currently the benefits seem just feels a little out of balance with the penalties.

Being smacked with a 4by2 in the guts is currently no different for somebody in a cotton vest as somebody with a thick wool jacket over a chain shirt with under padding - seems wrong. While I expect both to be bruised, I would expect less bruising on the armoured person equating to fewer endurance lost.

Uh-oh. "Realism".

That way lies madness.

[Corvo]

I get that and agree up to a point. Currently the benefits seem just feels a little out of balance with the penalties.

Being smacked with a 4by2 in the guts is currently no different for somebody in a cotton vest as somebody with a thick wool jacket over a chain shirt with under padding - seems wrong. While I expect both to be bruised, I would expect less bruising on the armoured person equating to fewer endurance lost.

A lot of us (like me) adopted house rules for armour giving damage reduction.
At a time there were so many discussion about it that they created the house rules sub-forum
If you look there you can find something