Building beginning characters

[Southron]

What are some of your thoughts/experiences with making beginning characters as per RAW.

Any skills that may be more important than others than may not be readily obvious? Skills that seems like they many vital but not?

Has anyone experimented with various builds and played them out to see how things would go?

Thanks,

SL

[Hermes Serpent]

Here's the bit from my Characters.pdf document mention in my sig. It was gleaned from discussion on the old forum.

Important Common Skills:
-Travel (2 ranks) is CRITICAL.
-Battle (2 ranks) highly recommended.
-Athletics (1 rank) CRITICAL and 2 ranks highly recommended.
-Awareness (1 rank) CRITICAL and 2 ranks highly recommended.
-Song or Craft (by the end of first fellowship phase, i.e., during Heroic Development) 2 ranks is CRITICAL to reliably heal shadow/corruption.
-Your Party Travelling Role (Explore, Awareness, Hunting or Travel): whichever one is your role, having 2 ranks
is CRITICAL.
-Awe or Courtesy. 1 rank is CRITICAL and 2 ranks are highly recommended in one of these skills if you want to
have a party hope of succeeding at social encounters before exceeding tolerance.
After that, the players can fill in the blanks of Common Skills so that all skills are covered, but EVERYONE really
needs to have the skills mentioned above.

HTH

[Elmoth]

Agreed with H. Setrpent, just that all his skills marked as 2 ranks I would increase to 3 ranks. 2 ranks is about 50% chance of success against a TN14, and I do not find that to be reliable at all.

[poosticks7]

I believe insight is an important skill that often gets forgotten - (At least the way I LM anyway )

[Corvo]

Mostly agree with Hermes Serpent.
The way I put it:

-Travel at 3, everyone. This is pretty crucial, and almost impossible to have
-a Weapon Skill at 3, unless you think your character is a non-combatant.
-Courtesy: at least one in the group at 3 (and all the others are better have 2, if possible).
-Fellowship traveling role (Awareness, Hunting, etc): 3... but at the start is pretty hard to fill all the roles with skill 3. Be sure to have at least a good Look Out.

This is the absolute minimum imo. Then we can add:

-someone should get 3 in Inspire or Song (to rally the companions)
-someone should get 3 in Awe or Battle (to intimidate foes)
-Song or Craft at 2 at least, to shed some Shadow points
-an archer (not 2, unless you are a lot), but that guy need skill 3.

Well, this is a pretty ideal (and munchkin!) setup, but as HermesSerpent wrote, most of the skills are pretty much needed.

Edit: and a Woodman healer. This is really important!

[Southron]

Thanks for the replies!

[Yusei]

From a Loremaster point of view, I think the game was more fun when at least some of the characters in my group did NOT have Travel, Courtesy and Song/Craft at 3. It meant random stuff could happen during travels and meetings, and it meant players were actually wary about not gaining shadow.

Don't get me wrong, it's ok for characters to evolve and become stronger, but there is nothing wrong with having weak characters first. Bilbo or Frodo certainly did not have Travel at 3 when they started their adventures, and it was fine. If I became a player and had to create a character, I would be tempted to be decent at everything, but I would refrain from that. I'd rather be strong at one or two things, and horrible at the others. It's not optimal, but it's fun.

Regarding the question of what rank you need to be useful at one skill, I'd say rank 2 means you have a reasonable chance to succeed if you're ready to spend 1 Hope, and rank 3 means you have a reasonable chance to succeed without spending Hope. Since Travel is a more passive skill than Atheltics, for example, it's "better" to have Travel at 3 and Atheltics at 2. In case of emergency, you can still spend Hope on an Athletics roll.

[Woodclaw]

From a Loremaster point of view, I think the game was more fun when at least some of the characters in my group did NOT have Travel, Courtesy and Song/Craft at 3. It meant random stuff could happen during travels and meetings, and it meant players were actually wary about not gaining shadow.

Don't take me wrong, it's ok for characters to evolve and become stronger, but there is nothing wrong with having weak characters first. Bilbo or Frodo certainly did not have Travel at 3 when they started their adventures, and it was fine. If I became a player and had to create a character, I would be tempted to be decent at everything, but I would refrain from that. I'd rather be strong at one or two things, and horrible at the others. It's not optimal, but it's fun.

Regarding the question of what rank you need to be useful at one skill, I'd say rank 2 means you have a reasonable chance to succeed if you're ready to spend 1 Hope, and rank 3 means you have a reasonable chance to succeed without spending Hope. Since Travel is a more passive skill than Atheltics, for example, it's "better" to have Travel at 3 and Atheltics at 2. In case of emergency, you can still spend Hope on an Athletics roll.

I'm with Yusei on this one. While the suggestions from Hermes and Corvo are absolutely correct if you want a maxed out party, I think that it's more interesting to have less well rounded group, allowing for some weird stuff to happen and providing more story hooks for the characters.

[Elmoth]

having a high combat and travel is cool, but not THAT vital. if you do not go overboard on equipment, you can rely in your endurance to keep up with your loses from travelling around. Travel 2 is noce to have, though, so you can expect to pass a few of the Travel rolls. This is important because ability points are at a premium when you design a character.

For the same reason, weapon skill 3 might be ditched for an ability of 2 since it is really expensive to overinvest in this one. Combats will be longer, and you might have to risk a more forward stance (forward or open), but can be done. What I would suggest is getting your parry bonus to 7-9 to avoid being smitten to pieces by the opposition. I find this to be more important than offensive skill.

There are 2 options to go for in character building: social or wilderness skills. lakemen, dalians and hobbits (and IIRC beornings) are good at social skills and suck at wilderness ones. Woodmen and elves are good at wilderness and suck socially. Hobbits and beornings are specialized in some social and wildrness skills combos, but they are somewhat awkward in these combinations. Lakemen and people from dale are more rounded there, as are the woodmen. Elves are more specialized in their skill selection. An archer is useful, specvially for the archer himself since he will be protected. Since he is not receiving blows, having archery at 3 is quite a bonuis, since otherwise your companions might not like you not receiving blows while not really contributing much to the war effort. They are taking the blows for you, so might expect something in return!


The inspire/song and battle/awe abilities are useful, yup.

[Eluadin]

I'm with Yusei on this one. While the suggestions from Hermes and Corvo are absolutely correct if you want a maxed out party, I think that it's more interesting to have less well rounded group, allowing for some weird stuff to happen and providing more story hooks for the characters.

I'm going to add another voice to this one, diversity and (seeming) weakness in one player-hero creates the possibility for heroes to support each other and build a real sense of fellowship. The one with the high Travel sharing the fruits of her great or extraordinary success with those less travelled. The far-trading dwarf with impressive Lore leading the rolling during the initial planning of a journey. In our campaign (I'm the Loremaster) players tend not to roll on everything, but roll where they can really assist the fellowship.

Another interesting outcome, unplanned but really valuable: when players tie starting experience to their back story and develop common skills inline with that backstory, they seem to remember to use their traits more often than not (especially for advancement points). Maybe this is where the skill and advancement system finally mesh in the way the rules as written intend, or not...?

Regards,
Scott