First game of TOR some issues

[midden]

Today our game group had its first game of Tor, doing the Bell quest. The group is quite combat focused and seemed to have focussed character creation on what wins in these rules ..... These observations are:

1) A max parry character = Win. The opposition getting past a 18 / 20 to hit is pretty non existent.
2) Only use Defence stance = Win. No need to use Open or Forward stance they seem undesirable, the group started with 3* melee skill. What is the point of open and forward later in the game if the starting charters viewed these stances as folly?
3) The Hobbit with kings blade with a body of 2 killed the Troll in two rounds... sure there is luck but the odds seem to favour the little folk in this game?
4) The only character that got hit (hurt badly) in the entire game was the Dwarf, (lowest parry) seemed to have a mistaken faith in armour. Which when really needed is when your weary and then it seems to suck.
5) Weapons balanced? ... kings blade = yay, Barding Bow = yay, Spears = yay. Rest = meh.

Interested in your thoughts.

[Hermes Serpent]

You need to challenge them with Travel tests and social Encounters. Chances are they approached TOR as a combat-focussed RPG based on your descriptions and will fail miserably when they aren't hitting things. Making them use other skills will push them into distributing their skill points more evenly.

Another thought - are you using multiple opponents (the denizens of the lost city) to overwhelm them or archers who don't close to combat and shoot and run. I've found combination enemies synergise well to give heroes problems - bats and orcs for example. The stances are more useful once you understand the use of alternate combat actions - Awe will effectively drive off goblins and Song will give endurance loss back.

Using adventures that require less combat and more brains is the way to deal with players who value maximising parry and weapons skills over all others.

If they can't hope to influence men of power to give them tasks they'll forever be sitting in the tavern waiting for someone to put a job up on the noticeboard. They will be likely the go-to team for finding lost cats and missing budgerigars.

[Rich H]

Will take your points one at a time...

1) A max parry character = Win. The opposition getting past a 18 / 20 to hit is pretty non existent.

In the starting/introductory that's possible but later foes where they add their attribute level to attacks (ie, favoured attacks) are going to hit. I don't think this is a problem in the game and is a deliberate design goal - PCs in defensive stances should be very difficult to hit, especially with a high parry rating. I'm fine with this, personally.

2) Only use Defence stance = Win. No need to use Open or Forward stance they seem undesirable, the group started with 3* melee skill. What is the point of open and forward later in the game if the starting charters viewed these stances as folly?

Not really. PCs can easily become wearied and my players often move into a more aggressive stance when this occurs in order to still give them a chance of hitting. There are also different combat options associated with each stance so there are going to be times when some are more useful than others.

3) The Hobbit with kings blade with a body of 2 killed the Troll in two rounds... sure there is luck but the odds seem to favour the little folk in this game?

I think you need to provide some numbers here because that sounds statistically extreme. It is possible but not probable. The hobbit with King's Blade needs to successfully hit, get a piercing blow, AND the troll then needs to fail it's protection test. I've found the King's Blade is great at achieving piercing blows but not so good at actually wounding - especially larger creatures or armoured ones. A short sword only has an injury rating of 14 which is easy to beat with a Feat Die + 3 skill dice.

Combat with the troll is very varied though - I think combat in TOR is generally, which is good as it means combat isn't predictable and therefore feels dangerous. Lots of players have reported that the troll caused them loads of problems so success obviously depends on tactics and party ability.

4) The only character that got hit (hurt badly) in the entire game was the Dwarf, (lowest parry) seemed to have a mistaken faith in armour. Which when really needed is when your weary and then it seems to suck.

The dwarf in my Fellowship has been saved countless times due to his armour so my experience is different. Armour is all about avoiding wounds - whether you're wearied or not doesn't really matter as a penetrating attack can threaten wounding irrespective of whether a character is wearied or not.

5) Weapons balanced? ... kings blade = yay, Barding Bow = yay, Spears = yay. Rest = meh.

You're going to have to provide more information than that as I can't really engage with your level of analysis on this.

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Like Hermes has said above, if the group has invested in combat areas then they are going to suck a lot in other areas that are more important to TOR than fighting. They'll be arriving wearied after a journey (due to failed travel rolls), they'll be poor at encounters with NPCs (due failed social interaction rolls), etc. Although they may shine in combat with their skills of 3 and 4, they'll not be doing the same in other facets of the game. TOR is more about those elements than combat so a correct balance needs to be struck between such components to achieve the optimal play experience.

[Beran]

Not sure how that Troll v. Hobbit thing worked. If this is the same situation that I am thinking of that Troll just about wiped out my entire party when we played it...and it was already hurt! If the Hobbit player was lucky enough to get enough wounds in to do the job in 2 rounds, then I say Bravo! Other wise I would say someting is amiss here.

As to the other points above, I heartly agree with what the others have said. TOR is a Socio/Political game as much as a old style Fantasy one. You need to make allies and impress Patrons to get any where and you can't really do that by swinging a sword all the time.

[Gweinel]

As Rich and Hermes said, TOR is not only combat. If your party is overfocused in combat then will have problems in social encounters and exploration which is very important element of the game. Some oficial adventures (like "Those Who Tarry No Longer") invest in non-combat situations which probably your party will have big problem. Moreover don't forget that combat is one of the two major dangers in the game. The other is corruption and will come apparent later in your games. If your players have invested in valor than wisdom will lead to lose many corruption checks and that will follow "bout of madness".

[midden]

Thanks for the comments, the group has no problems with the non combat aspects of the games design which work really well and were enjoyed.

The combat is where the group found that problems lie.
1) Kings blade uber: hobbit in troll fight with kings blade first round hits including a 6. does 7 damage to Troll with a pierce from Kings blade "6" - Troll fails armour roll. 2nd round, hobbit hits Troll including a 6 does 7 damage with a pierce again thanks to Kings blade. Troll fails armour roll again and is dead.
Kings blade on a starter character with 3 skill has over 50% chance to inflict a piecing hit... I think if my statistics math is not flawed....... 1/6 + 1/6 + 1/6 + 2/12 = 4/6 = 66% chance on each throw to pierce. That seems extremely unbalanced to me.

This and Barding Bow and Spears leave other weapons much inferior.... see the post "spears" for the piercing stats presented there.

2) Armour - seems really lame in this game. Here is an example.

Dwarf 1 with 30hp and coat of mail has taken 15 hits of endurance damage over a couple rounds of combat. Next round of combat fights as weary.

Dwarf 2 with 30hp and no armour takes 15 hits of endurance damage over a couple of rounds of combat. Next round of combat fights with no penalty.

I also understand weary affects the protection roll dice as well, hence my point in the opening post that when the armour protection roll is needed more often than not it will be degraded by the effects of weary losing 1-3's on the dice.

I can understand the mechanics sought, consequences of travelling great distances in armour.... but the penalties for armour are so extreme.

[jamesrbrown]

Wow. The Stone Troll failed both armour rolls even with 3d armour? The Hobbit's short sword only has an Injury rating of 14 (unless it is also Fell, in which case it would be 16).

What stance did the Hobbit take in the engagement?

Did the Troll attack the Hobbit and hit?

I say, if the Hobbit was able to roll two great successes in a row and the Stone Troll failed two armour tests in a row, then you just experienced a feat worth remembering in song for years to come. I don't think that same thing would happen very often.

[jamesrbrown]

I also understand weary affects the protection roll dice as well, hence my point in the opening post that when the armour protection roll is needed more often than not it will be degraded by the effects of weary losing 1-3's on the dice.

The rulebook does say clearly that all tests are affected by Weariness. However, it also states that Protection rolls are made to determine whether a character's armour prevents a blow from causing lasting damage. The armour isn't Weary, just the player-hero. Because of this, I don't apply the affects of Weariness to Protection tests in my games. Why should the armour be less protective just because the player-hero is fatigued? I don't see armour in TOR as abstract as armour bonuses to defense in the d20 system. To me, a Piercing blow is a very good strike that could possibly kill. The Feat die represents the hero's natural toughness, but Success dice represent additional protection from armour. The Protection test does what it says - it tests the protection of the hero's armour.

I know what the counter argument is: If a player-hero is Weary, he is slower and more vulnerable, giving the enemy a better chance to find the weak spots in his armour. I don't know. I'd rather make him easier to hit by lowering the TN to hit him by one level than making it easier to pierce his armour.

In the game, a Weary hero is penalized on his attack rolls by not counting 1s, 2s, or 3s. However, his defensive TN is still controlled by the choice of his Stance combined with his Parry rating. Those things are not affected by Weariness. Instead, the protection of his armour is affected. This seems like an illogical rule for the sake of simplicity.

[Angelalex242]

The thing about max parry character is that it naturally requires really high wits scores to get there. And maybe reinforced great shields. And if a dwarf, the durin's way virtue. If a hobbit, the small virtue. And to further improve their shield, the tower shield reward for Bardings, and the swordmaster virtue, using a longsword one handed to take full advantage of a high encumberance sword, great strength for Beornings, Water Legs for Lake Men.

That really high wits score contributes to persuade and riddle, which are both quite useful in social encounters. It also helps stealth, so these witty parry guys can ninja like nothing else. It even helps Lore, so they know things. These guys can also search and hunt like pros.

And of course, Woodmen are putting their +3 favored stat in wits to maximize their parry in forest or mountains, depending. Ditto Hobbits with Small.

So what weaknesses do they have? Well, either really low heart scores or really low body scores. A max wits dwarf is going to have a heart of 2 (6/2/6). A max wits elf will be 4/3/7 or 5/2/7. Max wits hobbit will be 2/6/6. And so on. Most humans can only have wits 4, but a woodman can have 3/4/7 or 2/5/7, and with wits favored +3, has a base parry of 10 in their home environment, and they can then tack their reinforced great shield on to that for a mighty 14 parry on their home turf. By contrast, dwarves can only get to 13 parry on their home turf. Hobbits get that same 13 parry against anything bigger then them (assuming they can use great shields. Don't think they can...). By contrast, the poor 4 wits Barding can use a longsword with swordmaster and a reinforced tower greatshield to get to...parry 11, 13 vs. arrows. The poor 4 wits Beorning has his reinforced great shield with great strength, and he gets to parry 11 as well. The Lakeman loses out, as Water Legs is his only parry booster, and it's very situational, so he's stuck at parry 8 most of the time with a reinforced great shield. Elves max out at 11 parry with a reinforced greatshield, but they do get that in all circumstances, as they have no situational parry bonus. If they did, they'd be able to hit 14 parry too.

[midden]

Did the Troll attack the Hobbit and hit?

No the troll took a particular dislike to the "armoured" dwarf, severely injuring in the first round but not wounding. The Dwarf player was a bit peeved, "hang on.... hasn't this armour helped at all?.... now I'm weary too.... only because I am wearing this armour.... and taking one for the team... and now I'am worse off for the rest of the fight, can I take it off?

This is what started the analysis, of the merits pros cons of armour. Where not being hit by being particularly "witty" was the best bet in combat, as well as in the riddle competition.

The Dwarf felt short changed.