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One of my players took Hound of Mirkwood as her Virtue when she upgraded her Woodman's Wisdom - sounds great.
I assumed that this was an activity requiring an Undertaking and required that of her.
Now she is wanting to develop this Virtue as written on pg 112 of the main Rules, and I now noticed that it actually says, after detailing the assistance to one Common skill on initially taking the Virtue:
"You can train him to Support additional skills, as well as to assist you in combat, as a separate undertaking during later Fellowship phases, as follows:"
where it goes on to detail Support as a benefit, finishing with:
"It takes a Fellowship phase and 1 Experience point to teach your dog to complete an additional task."
It states that training the Hound to assist the character in combat with Harass Enemy and Protect also require a Fellowship Phase and 1 Experience Point.

The use of the word 'undertaking' is unfortunate and it confused me - does this really mean that developing this Virtue requires the character to devote an Undertaking to this? I initially assumed that it did, considering 'Fellowship Phase' is mentioned and because training a dog does take significant effort. However the term 'Undertaking' isn't used, so maybe this is something that can be done in parallel with the Undertaking(s) available in that Fellowship Phase.
I am interested to hear what other LM's understand and use for this rule.
Thanks!

You need to use the fellowship phase to train the hound.

Winterwolf wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 28, 2017 5:02 am

... does this really mean that developing this Virtue requires the character to devote an Undertaking to this? I initially assumed that it did

That's how we've always done it, yes.

Yes, training a hound is an undertaking. The text style does not capitalize undertaking when it refers to the game term. The mention of requiring undertakings is subsequently explicated in the Support, Harass Enemy, and Protect paragraphs, even though these paragraphs do not use the word.

Winterwolf wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 28, 2017 5:02 am

One of my players took Hound of Mirkwood as her Virtue when she upgraded her Woodman's Wisdom - sounds great.
I assumed that this was an activity requiring an Undertaking and required that of her.

Just to clarify, when the Cultural Virtue is initially purchased, no Undertaking is required. Only later when upgrading the Virtue do they have to do that, as others have stated.

Ah - thanks for that!
Looks like I robbed her at the last Fellowship Phase - paid XP for the Wisdom/Cultural Virtue AND an Undertaking as well!

Winterwolf wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 28, 2017 11:27 pm

Ah - thanks for that!
Looks like I robbed her at the last Fellowship Phase - paid XP for the Wisdom/Cultural Virtue AND an Undertaking as well!

Easily fixed: just let her upgrade it without requiring an Undertaking this time, as she's effectively already paid that cost!

Good idea - I wondered about allowing something like that, but didn't finalise my thoughts on it.
If I had, I could have allowed her to choose another Undertaking , instead of using it to train her Hound to Harass Enemy, as she did tonight....doh....will save it for next Fellowship Phase.
Would have changed everybody's choice of Undertakings probably...
When all the Company are needed to create a Sanctuary but one is determined to do something else (like train a dog).
Dwarf in the Company also wanted to make money - so is spending his Treasure gained Guarding the Old Ford to build a smithy alongside the Easterly Inn currently under construction.....