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"The problem you'll have is that beyond opening volleys the PC won't be able to use a bow so caution against your player investing in that skill at the expense of a melee-based one."

Personally, I would toss the required extra players needed to assume a rearward stance to fire a bow or throw a spear. Primarily, it never really made sense to me (but that is another discussion). If a solo character uses a bow it is more then likely going to be in a sniping role from distance and concealment so the cover provided by other players would not be necessary; he would then go to sword as the enemy got closer.

Beran wrote:Personally, I would toss the required extra players needed to assume a rearward stance to fire a bow or throw a spear. Primarily, it never really made sense to me (but that is another discussion). If a solo character uses a bow it is more then likely going to be in a sniping role from distance and concealment so the cover provided by other players would not be necessary; he would then go to sword as the enemy got closer.

That was more my point Beran, that he'll get engaged in melee not that he doesn't have the required number of companions in order to adopt a Rearward stance.

Beleg wrote:Rich, do you mean the Laketown Supplement? I'm fairly sure you do, just thought I'd check

I did, good spot!

Angelalex242 wrote:You could make him what I'd call a 'Paragon Elf.'

I think a better option than this would be to just let the player spend an allotted amount of APs and XPs on building the character's competencies up a little further. That way you're not messing with things like base and favoured attribute levels, number of specialities/distinctive features and so on and how these would interact with Hope spend, NPCs and high-elves (rumoured to be in the upcoming Rivendell supplement), and like you stated the ability to use the character in the 'multi-player' game.

To the OP... I do think however if a more experienced/competent character is built you are going to lose out in seeing the in-game development of your character, which again is a problem for any RPGs where this kind of thing is done.

There's a table on page 120 of the LM book, "Heroic Heritage". I'd use that in one of two ways:

1) To use within the PCs background, and as a driver for the campaign, him discovering what happened to his mentor/father/whatever. If you set this 'ancestors' XP total at whatever band in the table you felt was appropriate then the PC would 'inherit' extra XP to build on his character. Personally, I'd double that number for him and the issue here is that it doesn't address APs for common skills - you could use the idea from (2) below for them though.

2) Another option would be to use those XP bands to assess what level of increased competency you want to give to your player's character. Personally, I think the 20-39 or 40 to 59 bands would be best - and pick a number midpoint within the band you go for, so 30 and 50 respectively. I'd award 1.5 times this amount in APs as they have a higher cost to increase - so 45 and 75 APs respectively, depending on what band you go with.

Note, that the above do not address the problems I personally have with building a more experienced/competent character to start play with, they are just two suggestions (in addition to Angelalex242's suggestion of a 'Paragon Elf').

Wow, that's really helpful guys! I'll start digesting now