Favoured skill of the Dunlendings got lost in translation :)

[Remmi]

Hello everyone,
playing The One Ring in German (and still being sad about the discontinuation of the German translation), I stumbled upon the following "issue":

When I looked for the favoured skill of the Dunlendings, my German copy of Horse Lords of Rohan tells me, its exploration, whereas the Adventurers Companion says, its hunting. I know I can decide that on my own for any session I host, but curious as I am, which one is the "correct" one (and is this only an error in the German translation)?

[mirkwoodfalcon]

Huh, how odd! My English (print) versions of "Horse-lords of Rohan" and "Adventurer's Companion" have the same discrepancy. AC lists it as Hunting, HLoR lists it as Explore. Would be nice to have an official ruling on this!

Edit: Also worth pointing out that my English digital PDFs (most up-to-date versions!) also show this discrepancy.

[Otaku-sempai]

I have the same discrepancy. As much as I would like to say 'defer to Horse-lords as the original source', my gut tells me that it should probably be Hunting and Horse-lords of Rohan should be revised to reflect that. I just think the Dunlendings, on the whole, should tend to be better hunters than explorers.

[Rich H]

I'd go with Hunting too; makes far more sense.

[Remmi]

I will stick with hunting too since it seems to fit more, but in Azrapses online character generator, it's exploration, as I just saw.

[Otaku-sempai]

I will stick with hunting too since it seems to fit more, but in Azrapses online character generator, it's exploration, as I just saw.

That makes sense since it was probably programmed with the data from Horse-lords.

[amajo]

Horse-lords of Rohan and the online generator are correct. Francesco confirmed that the favoured skill of the Dunlendings should be Explore.

Amado

[Otaku-sempai]

Horse-lords of Rohan and the online generator are correct. Francesco confirmed that the favoured skill of the Dunlendings should be Explore.

Amado

I believe you, though I still find it counter-intuitive.

[Francesco]

As Amado said, the choice of Explore as the favoured skill for the Dunlendings was the original one, but since both versions are in print we can actually retcon this and make it Hunting instead, if there is a general consensus to consider it a better fit. I think it is not a good choice to make a skill with a rating of 3 also favoured, as it is a bit of an overkill, but it happened before (Dwarves, Woodmen). So, what do you think?

Francesco

[Falenthal]

What I think is worst of having a favourite skill with 3 skill ranks from the start is that much of the benefit of a favourite skill (lesser AP cost to improve) is lost for the character. On the other hand, he will be able to achieve the higher ranks faster than his comrades in the fellowship.

I don't really mind choosing one over the other, although thematically the Tracking trait that the dunledings have seems to point in the direction of Hunting.