Help! My Wits score is 2!

[Afterimagedan]

I'm learning the game a bunch lately and have some questions if anyone could please help!

It someone with Wits 2 going to get hit a ton? It seems like Wits is very important to get that parry rating. Is there any way around this for a melee hero?

Also, what sort of things does Heart effect in combat?

[Scrollreader]

Heart affects your starting hope and endurance, so that's sort of a big deal. And it's used if you invoke an attribute bonus on Fear and Corruption checks, which is also handy.

As for your low wits: Carry a shield, if at all possible. Bigger is generally better, in this case. Also, try to stay in a stance with more inherent protection, like open or defensive, particularly if you have enough dice in your primary weapon skill to hit from it (3 or more for defensive, generally). Lastly, check your culture and see if you have a Virtue or Reward that helps! (Great Strength for Beornings, Swordmaster for Bardings, etc)

[zedturtle]

If you've got a low Wits, you're probably a Barding or a Beorning (if I recall correctly... travelling and don't have access to anything easily). Both cultures have Virtues that help with the Parry problem... Swordmaster for the Bardings and Great Strength for the Beornings. Of course, both have requirements, but they're fairly easy to meet.

That's one of the beautiful things about the game; the Virtues are carefully selected to match up with the Culture, both from a fluff POV and mechanical needs.

[Deadmanwalking]

Almost all cultures with low Wits have some way to increase their Parry to compensate (and those that don't have other advantages). Picking middling to high Wits for your Culture is thus almost always a good decision, but no Culture as a whole suffers too much.

To list such methods: Beornings, as noted, have Great Strength (+3 Parry while at Encumbrance 12 or less), and Bardings have Swordmaster (+3 Parry when using a Longsword from Defensive). Likewise, Rohirrim have King's Guard (the Shield Raising option, which doubles your Shield's Parry modifier while mounted). Men of the Lake are the only exception (technically, they have Water Legs...but it's not great) but they have another means of compensation with Shield Fighting making Great Shields nearly universal among them and giving even one with Wits 2 a Parry of 5 and a huge offensive advantage as compared to other shield users (so they work more like two-handed weapon users in some ways, effectively trading Parry for offensive power).

And, as others have suggested, low Parry characters grabbing a Shield also really helps. Heck, that's not a bad idea even if you're just low Wit for your particular culture.

And, as others note, combining these two options often results in very respectable Parry ratings indeed (my current character is a Beorning with Wits 3 and Parry 10 via Great Strength and a Reinforced Great Shield).

As for the use of Heart, IME Heart is only middling useful in the midst of combat (it determines Endurance and Hope, but the worst and best a Culture grants are only 2 points apart)...but is very useful for healing (as well as essential for various non-combat uses like Wisdom checks). A character down 15 Endurance with Heart 7 is down only 8 after resting a few minutes, and completely fine in four days. With Heart 2, he's down 13 after a bit of rest and not fine for a full week after that. The difference gets even larger with a safe space to rest (the Heart 7 guy is fine the next morning, the Heart 2 guy still takes several days). This distinction matters quite a bit. Now, Heart doesn't help healing rates at all if you're Wounded, which is a fact worth considering, but it's still nice to have.

[Afterimagedan]

Well, that's encouraging! Thanks for all the info and advice! I think that will be really helpful.

[Fatpob]

Is it right that some cultures must spend their virtues/rewards to just to balance with other cultures in defence.

The Swordmaster limits the characters stance, the beorning limits what gear they can carry.

It does seem unfair really that these cultures loose a cool reward just to stay competitive in combat.

For those who say use a shield, thats fine, but so can all the other cultures, so that's not an answer.

[Afterimagedan]

Fatpob,

I suppose if you pick a bad for combat background, you will get a character bad a combat. I don't see the problem with that. Having to pick a reward makes up for a downside, but don't forget about the upside they get for it. The Rohan guy I have that has 2 Wits also has 7 Body (!) and 5 Heart. I will need to find a way to help get around the 2 Wits, but dude, 7 Body? That's awesome.

[zedturtle]

Right, as afterimagedan says, the cultures are balanced against one another... the Virtues are there so that certain concepts are viable, but there's no need to go that route. Designing a character with low Wits, high Body and a generous Endurance margin allows for someone that will get hit but dish out much more damage than they receive; that's another solution that doesn't require Virtues. And that also assumes a combat-centric approach, which is not always true for TOR.

[Deadmanwalking]

Cultures who wish to compensate for their inherent weaknesses need to invest in it, it's true. But said Cultures inevitably also have strengths that other people would need to invest things in to match.

I mean, a Woodman or Hobbit is gonna have mediocre Body at best (and often quite a bit worse than that) and thus some serious disadvantages every bit as severe as a Beorning's low base Parry. Damage numbers are relevant, and become more so as characters progress in skill, and being able to spend Hope and add +6 or so to a Protection Test (rather than +2 or +3) is a literal lifesaver upon occasion.

And neither Hobbits nor Woodmen can compensate for both those advantages, though both can spend a Reward to help a bit (Hobbits can get Lucky Armor which helps with the Protection tests, and Woodmen a Shepherd's Bow, which helps with damage). They have advantages of their own, certainly, but acting like low-Wit cultures are somehow inferior or in need of help is rather deeply incorrect.

To look at a couple more examples, Wood Elves who want to compensate for low Heart can likewise get Elven Dreams to help with healing rate, but can do nothing about it's other bad effects, and Dwarves can get Stiff Neck and decrease their Hope expenditures (again, compensating for low Heart) but can do nothing about healing rate. But both also have advantages others need serious investment to match (low Heart means high Body and Wit, after all, plus their other tricks).

And so on. Cultures all have weaknesses in some area, and are well served by Virtues and Rewards that compensate...but absent those Virtues, everyone has some sort of weakness, not just the low Wits people. They just have different weaknesses.

And, also as noted, being low Parry is a bad idea for a dedicated combat character...but frankly, not every character in TOR needs to be super dedicated to combat. And, indeed, almost all Cultures require some medium to heavy investment to be really good at combat, not just those who need a Parry boost.

[Fatpob]

I understand cultures have strengths and weaknesses, and the balance within the cultures is important. However suggesting a culture that has SwordMaster as a Virtue isn't martial seems somewhat amiss.

I get that the Bardings (and similar low wit cultures) benefit at the other end with higher body and heart, so higher damage capability and more endurance and hope.

However there is a far greater differential between a wits of 2 and a wits of 7 than between 19 endurance and 24 endurance.

example for wits 2 with shield in defensive stance (TN 17) vs Orc Soldier, Orc Guard and Great Orc

Orc 2d + Feat 22% hit chance
Orc Guard 3d + feat 53% hit chance
Great Orc 3d + feat + 7 96% hit chance

vs our elf with shield TN 22
Orc 2d + Feat 9% hit chance (Basically a Sauron or 2 x 6's and a 10)
Orc Guard 3d + feat 18% hit chance
Great Orc 3d + feat + 7 67% hit chance

Based on the basic fact that each hit will do 4 endurance, the 7 wits 19 endurance Elf is actually equivalent of having an endurance of between 23 and 27 endurance. If the endurance loss is higher off the basic attack, the Wits is worth far more.

I appreciate I have used extremes to illustrate the point, but even wits 5 is a significant advantage at 13%, 27% and 84%.