Fatigue limit?

[aramis]

How about this? Being Weary multiple phases in a row is like...slave labor, of sorts.

So for every adventure phase you remain weary, reduce maximum hope by one until you fully recover.

This lets somebody become miserable or spent by carrying too much stuff.

Creates yet another hope subscore to track...

At present, the derived variable scores:
Endurance

• Maximum
• Current

Fatigue

• Encumbrance
• Travel & Encounter Fatigue

Hope

• Maximum
• Current

Shadow

• Current
• Permanent

Growth Related

• current AdvPhase AP by category
• Unspent AP
• Total AP Spent
• Unspent XP
• Total XP spent

Adding something that lowers the maximum temporarily means adding a new value. And one that has potentially drastic consequences, as the hope economy is already tight.

We have already 2 implied other thresholds that could be more readily modified logically.

• There's the encumbrance limit. Currently, it's the maximum End. were it not for the recursion issue, reducing maximum end would be a reasonable choice.
• There's the unconsciousness threshold. It's zero. This makes it an easier target for modification. We still add a tracked value, but call it "Excess Fatigue", cap Fatigue at Max End, and any increases when capped go to excess fatigue; we add also a change in the math at end of turn in combat: "if Current Endurance is at or below 0, unconscious", we instead check "If Current Endurance below Excess Fatigue, go unconscious." -not adding any more logic, just a variable lookup.

Either of these have less chance of making things go totally sideways while penalizing excess fatigue.

It's important not to go too far with it.

[atgxtg]

The type of player doing this is, in my experience, also the guy trying called shots every time, because he's almost always weary. Not sometimes. Almost ALL THE TIME. He doesn't care about recovery because he's not going to recover from weary within the scope of the adventure. He doesn't worry about travel rolls - because he's not going to recover it anyway, and the first hit in combat always makes him weary even at the start. So he soaks up the fatigue prodigiously... because there is no penalty to doing so.

Recovery time thus does not matter, as he's never going to recover during play.

Problem player then. He is suffering a penalty- he's weary all the time, so his skill dice roll are going to suck. Ultimately it is going to lead to him being killed off or snagging so many shadow points that he will have to retire. I take it that he's not responsive when you try to explain thing to him? If he's that greedy he should overload on shadow points in no time.

I'd say the guy is Barrow Wight fodder. Run him in an adventure in the Barrow Downs and let (his bad) nature run its course.

[aramis]

Try combat monster. Took rank 3 at start, and 4 at earliest opportunity.

And you apparently overestimate the penalty effect, as well. He was doing as much effective damage (by constantly whacking the bad guy) Math-wise, it only shaves 1 point off the average, and biases high. so at skill four, the average roll (including the 5.5 on the d12) is 15.5.

[atgxtg]

Try combat monster. Took rank 3 at start, and 4 at earliest opportunity.

I wouldn't consider someone with Rank 4 to be a combat monster, especially when he is weary all the time (so net effect is like he was Rank 3).

And you apparently overestimate the penalty effect, as well. He was doing as much effective damage (by constantly whacking the bad guy) Math-wise, it only shaves 1 point off the average, and biases high. so at skill four, the average roll (including the 5.5 on the d12) is 15.5.

No, I'm not thinking of it in terms of the fight, although the Wight shouldn't be a pushover,but in that the character is going to be hard pressed by his own greed.

But I think the real problem here isn't with fatigue and encumbrance rules but with your player. Sounds to me like he wants to kill everything and grab as much loot as he can carry. Sounds a lot more like a D&D adventurer than a TOR hero.

And you could always have him find some long lost artifact of ancient dwarven craftsmanship that he will want to carry with him back to his home. An anvil wound be a nice touch. The thing could eat up most of his "free" Encumbrance so he can't go overboard. Then next adventure he could find the hammer that went with the anvil, etc. etc. until he gets the hint.

[aramis]

He's not the only one I've seen go that route, just the most egregious and repeat offender.

[atgxtg]

He's not the only one I've seen go that route, just the most egregious and repeat offender.

I hear ya. In my last two campaigns set in Middle Earth (both before I had TOR, and using Decpiher's LOTR RPG) I had problems with some of the players "reverting" into D&D mode. Frankly, since D&D was "heavily influenced" by Tolkien's works, the campaign felt to them like D&D. The similarities between Decipher's CODA game mechanics and D20s game mechanics didn't help.