From david@usermode.org Sun Sep 7 22:23:38 2003 Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 17:44:52 -0700 From: David Johnson To: John Kim , Liz Henry Cc: James A. Chokey , Dennis Ruth Subject: Re: LOTR House Rules [ The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set. ] [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ] [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ] On Saturday 10 May 2003 12:36 am, John Kim wrote: > Well, I do kind of like rules tinkering -- but I completely > agree with you and Dennis that I don't want it to happen *in > session*. I think all of us don't like the phenomena of "Player: I do > X" followed by page flipping, followed by head-scratching when what > is found doesn't make much sense. However, given that we already > have PCs and have put effort into learning the rules, I would prefer > not to switch to another system. Ideally, I would say we come up > with a set of house rules -- and at some point switch over to them, > and call that good enough. Let's hash out some house rules then. We obviously can't correct every flaw in the rules, because it would take too long. So I'll limit myself to the three main problem points as I see them. Magic. It's too easy to cast magic. A good example is "Beast Speech". It has a target number of 5. Assuming Gudrid has a Stamina of +2, she will always succeed at this spell unless she rolls snakeeyes. And then when she does, she merely loses one weariness level which she can get back with ten minutes of rest, with still a good chance for success at an immediate recasting. Any suggestions to improve this? I'm thinking of imposing one extra level of weariness, so that you need a superior success to avoid weariness. This weariness would not take effect until after the spell has completed. I'm not sure about this though. Also thinking about a "discovery rule", where magic use can be easily detected by the enemy. As Gandalf said "signs that all can read from Rivendell to the Mouths of the Anduin". Other ideas are welcome. Combat.This needs a lot of work. I'll probably use the "cannon fodder" rule when next you run across a horde of orcs. But for regular combat we need something more. There should still be risk to the players, without bogging down the combat. My "extra success in combat" rule seems to work, but we need a bit more. Two suggestions. First, use the Harnmaster "tactical advantage" rules in some way. Maybe for two extra success you can choose to get a TA instead of extra damage. Second, opponents shouldn't be mere hit point collections for you to wear down. I've noticed that it's common enough for a single blow to take down an opponent one complete health level.Perhaps this should be reflected by a "stun" or specific damage effects to a hit location. Of course, any rules that give advantages to the players should also give them to the enemies. In the meantime, any comments on the house rules I already have posted at http://www.usermode.org/docs/lotrrules.pdf? p.s. The kind of house rules I'm looking for are the simple ones. Complicated charts imported from Rolemaster are not it, which seems to be the vogue in the online house rules I've seen. -- David Johnson ___________________ http://www.usermode.org From david@usermode.org Sun Sep 7 22:23:58 2003 Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 20:09:04 -0700 From: David Johnson To: John Kim Cc: Liz Henry , James A. Chokey , Dennis Ruth Subject: Re: LOTR House Rules [ The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set. ] [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ] [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ] On Wednesday 14 May 2003 12:16 am, John Kim wrote: > That's fine, thought it probably doesn't go far enough. > It won't affect Gudrid much, since she casts spells during non-combat > time when she can afford to rest 10 minutes. My analysis of it is > mainly that spells are just too cheap to buy. Taking 5 picks of > spells via Spellcasting is much better than any other Order Ability, > even with the Weariness change you mention. My intention was to help balance the casting of magic. Since we have characters already, I was going to defer the creation/advancement issue for later, and concentrate on stuff needed in the next couple of sessions. Non-tactical magic is always too easy in most games. Consider a Rolemaster Alchemist or Harnmaster Jmorvi who makes magic weapons for fellow party members. Hmm, sounds familiar for some reason... > I'll see about making a list of reasonable costs. The costs definitely need to be revised, but I'm not sure of the right way to do it. Double costs or is that still too cheap? Make the costs equal to the TN or is that too expensive? I think the basic problem is that there is no magical skills. We could make each spell a skill that you must learn and subsequently improve, but that's a drastic change from the current rules. > Also, Mastery of Shapes should > definitely be limited. We've established that Gudrid can become a > bear and a horse. Maybe she has one additional form (squirrel ?), > but that's it. Each form should cost in picks. Good idea. Each pick grants an additional animal form. Since you've already demonstrated two forms, we can assume that you've taken two spell picks. -- David Johnson ___________________ http://www.usermode.org > Now, to address your question, I would personally say that if you rest enough to regain > one Weariness level, it "resets the timer" so to speak. I'll double-check with TPTB and see > what the official response is, though... We've recently dealt with this in our campaign. There is a similar problem with sleep. There is a crippling penalty for going without sleep (i.e. a tough every hour with +1 TN each time). However, it doesn't say how much sleep is needed to reset this. i.e. If we only get four hours sleep, is that enough? What about 1 hour? Just to give an idea, we are chasing after a rider who headed to Barad Dur from Laketown. He had two days head start, so we went into forced march and then hard riding to try to catch up to him. Strictly by the rules, as long as we rest for 10 minutes every hour (i.e. regain the 1 lost Weariness level), anyone can run all day. We could just ignore the rules and say that everyone is down 1 or 2 Weariness levels, but there should be some difference based on Stamina, I think. I am considering making house rules which distinguish short-term Weariness (i.e. a five-minute sprint) from long-term Weariness (i.e. a day-long marathon). Short-term weariness is lost over a period of minutes from intense activity, but is gained back quickly. Long-term weariness is lost over hours, and is gained back only by eating and sleeping.