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It looks like, from the tables, Edge is more important then injury rating for all but 4d Armor. The difference between Edge 9 and Edge 8 makes spears (particularly the mighty great spear) the most optimized weapon in the game.

(And depending on whether or not cultural rewards count as qualities or not, Elves with Grievous Keen Fell Bitter Spears will even get through 4D armor if they roll a rune)

Elmoth wrote:both the longsword and the longshaft axe are one handed in the original table. They are equal to the mattock and great axe when 2 handed.

For the second post I just ran the numbers that angelalex242 gave me

Thank you

One of my PCs is a barding Swordmaster with a Keen Longsword that fight from rearward stance with sword 2-handed. It's pretty lethal: the last Troll they meet lasted 1 round! The bowman (Fell Greatbow) made a called shot (first wound for the troll), then the swordmaster rolled a 10... (2nd wound, RIP poor troll )

Hmmm. Next math exercise:

Calculate the odds of Axe of Az actually activating.

Since it must be an axe, long haft axe, or greataxe...

You have to calculate it against only those armor values you'd find on attribute 6 or less creatures, and remember anything without great size will die with one injury, making Axe of Az pointless.

For added funnies, make the 3 types of axes fell and watch the percentages go down even more...

Instinct says it works most often on a normal axe without fell, and works practically never with a Fell Greataxe (the enemy pretty much has to roll an Eye of Sauron to survive Injury 22). (The odds of something with an attribute rating of 6 having 4d of armor is pretty much nil...)

Angelalex242 wrote:Hmmm. Next math exercise:

Calculate the odds of Axe of Az actually activating.

Since it must be an axe, long haft axe, or greataxe...

You have to calculate it against only those armor values you'd find on attribute 6 or less creatures, and remember anything without great size will die with one injury, making Axe of Az pointless.

For added funnies, make the 3 types of axes fell and watch the percentages go down even more...

Instinct says it works most often on a normal axe without fell, and works practically never with a Fell Greataxe (the enemy pretty much has to roll an Eye of Sauron to survive Injury 22). (The odds of something with an attribute rating of 6 having 4d of armor is pretty much nil...)

A couple of notes:

- Axe of the Azanulbizar must be a Great Axe (AB 139)
- An enemy without Great Size will still be affected by this Axe, since he will be considered Weary for his Protection Roll against this attack.

Amado

Wow, thanks for the maths, that's interesting at looking at penetration totals.

Of course weapons like longsword and axes. possibly have the edge against the enemies with favoured protection rating - getting to add 4 or more to your total is a big deal.

On long-swords; they are great, and one of their advantages is the versatility: I would make cure I hand Enc. to carry a shield or buckler with one, so In dangerous situations I switch to one handed, rear stance + shield; then I'll die less than the spear man!

For woodsmen - I noticed that the low body is a gripe - I've built mine as a Woodsman... all skills at.al. and I'll be passable, but not good, at combat. It amuses me to think the real killers (if you want to run the numbers) of this game will be the halflings. But combat isn't the be all and end all - the RP is where it's at so it don't matter too much

My gripe isn't that spears are bad, but that spears are heavy for a one shot opening volley weapon; Thus the house rule that you drop 1 Encumbrance on loosing one.

If you simply made spears Enc 1 they would be to powerful - clearly a better choice than a Shortsword (same encumbrance, strictly worse stats), or sword - so they should stick at Encumbrance 2... but for those wanting an opening volley be as worthwhile as a bow.

Also I kinda like the King's Spear reward - I doubt a barding would take it, but it gives a phenomenal chance to one-shot a foe at the opening of combat; hitting that keen edge ~43% of the time... with keen hitting it ~56% of the time... which is a nice way to begin a fight.

Actually the halflings being the combat monsters of the game grates me quite a lot. A hobbit should not be a combat monster. Passable missile guy, yeah, sure, even good investing XP in it. But great hand to hand fighter? No way. Repeating the quality die is certainly too much for the small folk. I find this to be a design mistake in TOR. Bilbo certainly is no combat monster even having sting, and the same for the 4 hobbits in LotR, that are basically punching bags most of the time and only do well in combat when the enemy gets overconfident. And they carry king blades from the start. They are great at dodging, but not at killing. The description of their combat successes tends to be along the lines of getting gandalf runes (sheer luck).

Spears are the best weapon, yeah. However, the differences between weapons are small enough that all the weapons of the game are quite OK. Searching for the best weapon tends to be a futile exercise most of the time. I would take my cultural weapon and be extremely happy with it throughout the life of my character

What the game lacks is stats for a javelin, a spear dedicated to be thrown. Encumbrance 1 fdor 3 of them sounds reasonable to me. In order not to overpower other weapons of the game, you can give them these stats:
Light spear/Javelin (3 shots): Damage 5, Edge G, Injury 14. Encumbrace: 1. Can be thrown or used in close combat

Worse than a bow, but usable. They can also be usable in close combat, something a bow cannot AFAIK despite what Legolas does in the movies.

Cheers,
Xavi

"Actually the halflings being the combat monsters of the game grates me quite a lot. A hobbit should not be a combat monster. Passable missile guy, yeah, sure, even good investing XP in it. But great hand to hand fighter? No way...Bilbo certainly is no combat monster even having sting, and the same for the 4 hobbits in LotR..."

Well, it does say in the books the PC start off as adventurers. Meaning they have some experience under their belts already. I know it is kind of strange, but I feel the (Hobbit) characters more reflect Pip and Merry as Knights of Rohan and Gondor rather then when the started out. Because they were not adventurers and certainly not heroic at that point in the story.

Sorry I was exaggerating - I think all the cultures are balanced, and I don't actually think Hobbits are combat monsters. They can be strong at combat - but not strong than another race... and only in a specific way.

Which is nice, combat wise the cultures propose some choice I feel

The problem is that the hobbits are BETTER fighters than dedicated warriors from human and elven cultures. They do not resist as much damage (but they dodge better) and they attack way more efficiently than the larger folk. That is totally counterintuitive to me. Even as knights of rohan and gondor, Merry and Pippin should be no match in kill tally than the larger folk in the Community. I find this to be a mistake in the TOR rules. It comes from cultural rewards (the good shot and king's blade IIRC).

The problem is that the hobbits are BETTER fighters than dedicated warriors from human and elven cultures.

Ok I do not think this is the case - I think they are equivalent.

Bow

Good shot is not an issue. You have a hobbit with good shot, I will have a barding with "favoured body" to damage. Good shot will make you better than me at weapon skill 2. At weapon skill 4 we will both be hitting a lot, but my extraordinary hits could likely be doing 15 damage a pop, the equivalent from you doing 8 damage. That is a considerable difference. If we want to just go for penetrating hits, well I can aim and do a penetrating hit about every other round... you can shoot and do a penetrating hit about 56% of the time with Keen on your bow - that keen could be fell on mine, and I would be throwing out TN 18 wounds at almost same rate as you throw out TN 14 wounds.

Defence

Defence? I'm don't think this is an issue either. You said yourself this should be a strong point. A hobbit could get an excellent defence... if they build for it they could have defence 6 (wits) +3 (favoured) +1 buckler and +1 enhanced buckler... that's a parry of 11 costing 2 virtues AND your favoured score going in your joint highest stat

An Elf could have a parry of 7 (Wits) +3 Tower shield +1 (reward) = +11 for the less virtues, as could a woodman (even higher in a forest). Ok it costs more endurance - but you have more endurance.

The other end a Dalish man or Beroning can both have wit's 4 and get a situational +3 parry virtue... and then go with the tower whild idea above - parry 11. Dwarves can get a better parry when underground, and a base parry of +9 if wanted.

So most people can get there

Melee

Here might be the biggest issue - but I don't think it is. The humble shortsword is not good. Apart from the dagger it is the worse melee weapon in the system.

So the two key parts of combat are Endurance damage and Peircing blows.

Under piercing blows a halfling with a kings blade has great chance of inflicting one; this is there lucky strikes from the book.

An elf, with a one handed spear and one virtue, can be getting piercing blows on 33% of there attacks

The hobbit's chance depends on their skill with the short sword but very roughly is 20%+skill in shortsword*10%. This doen't take into account if the hobbit hit's or misses...but at skill 4 it's a peircing blow about 60% of the time.

So they are great at causing peircing blows. This is great when you are fighting foes with low armour, and not great at high armoured foes... a hobbit with skill 3 fighting an orc with 2d armour would take him down about 30% of the time - and about 40% of the time with skill 4. I's not great aginst high armour foes (skill 6 takes down a 4d armour about 8% of the time)

However

Endurance is the other half of battle; and here Halflings low Body rating is very telling. They just don't go around one-shorting Orcs... or really damaging trolls. In our campaign we have a weakiling body 5! dwarf but with grudge he's mowing through orcs left right and center. Being able to weild a two handed weapon means his normal hit's are the equivlant of the greatest hits of the Halflings... his epic hits do 21 endurance damage. It's quite noticeable.

So on this half of combat Halflings lose - the mattock, two handed longsword on an elf or the great spear of the Beoring just kick ass so much more. and against the one handed weapon wielder? well he dishes out more on every extraordinary success... the body 2 hobbit is harder to hit... but his great successes do 7 not 10 damage... and 15 is out of the question.

I would say most (80% or 90%) of the "monsters" killed so far in the PbP I'm in have been due to endurance loss; so I wounden't worry to mcu about the hobbits

Two more points

Armour and endurance

Halflings have very little armour because they have very little endurance - this means when they are hit with penetrating blows it can be a real issue. They just cant have the dwarves "it's only a flesh wound" durability

The combat hobbit; It would be possible to build a combat hobbit; but you do not excel over other characters. If you want to deal out endurance damage (the halflings weakness) you need body 4 - which means you will have wit's 4... so your parry could be 8 with two virtues - good, but not astounding.

Then you pile virtues into fell handed to up your damage rating to 5 or 6.

You are pretty scary - have a nice in the party and have totally built for combat - that is your concept so it makes since you are dangerous... but another race "totally building for combat" in the same way would be equally effective in another sphere. So I don't think the combat hobbit is something to worry about.