PCs that are TOO GOOD!

Anybody run across CODA Trek PCs that are too good?!? :eek:

We went with an experienced crew on purpose, but darn if they aren't too doggone good at what they do! Now before I go on, let me define the terminology I/we use:

I'm going to list a particular Skill with two numbers, the first being the Skill Level and the second being the Skill Total. We all know what the Skill Level is (1-12), but the Skill Total is the number they add 2d6 to (their Skill Level plus Attribute modifiers and all other bonuses from Edges and such). Most of you probably already know this or use this already, as it seems to be a standard on most character sheets out there.

My difficulty (in sometimes challenging my PCs) is a few specific Skills, usually a single one for each character.

So the Captain has a 12/21 in Tactics. That means he'll win most initiatives, but that's not really a problem.

The First Officer and Security Chief are both exxpert marksmen, so they have 12/20 when they use a phaser (these are also not as big of a deal, because combat really isn't the concern).

These next two are the more problematic ones.

The Medical Doctor has a 12/21 in Medicine. This means that - whatever disease I throw at him - he's going to be able to solve and cure it, lickety-split. Even if I make things Virtually Impossible (TN 25), it's a piece of cake.

Our Ops Officer has a 9/16 with System Operation. Of course he also has the Professional Ability Station Proficiency, so he can reroll one Sys Op test per session. This means it's virtually a lock for him to do anything, even spotting ships that are cloaked.

Anyone else run into this problem (or challenge)? :)

This has been one of the problems that has prevented me from totally going over to CODA. ICON seemed to deal with these power levels better - no, I don't have the maths to back me on this, it's a gut feeling, but there never seemed to be this problem in ICON.

I'm not sure how to fix it, though...

I'm actually running monthly sessions of CODA Trek for four different Trek clubs (Starfleet Command's Seventh Fleet out of Utah) with two, perhaps three more clubs waiting in the wings.

When we set up our standardized rules for the Fleet, we calculated advancements based on time in the club and actual ages (part of the pitch was playing "yourself as a Starfleet officer"- which means that many of our players have 20+ years worth of experience.

Even using the suggested rules of one advancement per 2 years of "civilian" life and 1 per year of Starfleet service, this means that I'm dealing with some VERY experienced characters- even if the players themselves are not experiences roleplayers.

The core ship (the guinea pig) for our games, U.S.S. Retributor, is the worst of the lot, because when you factor in Professional Abilities, affinities, edges and the rest, I'm routinely seeing skills in the 12/25 range or higher.

Worse, the Retributor crew (far more than the rest of the fleet) are all experienced D&D gamers with a minimum of 15 years experience.

This has forced a number of changes in how I run my games, and in the "standard" rules set for the Fleet as a whole.

Primarily the rules changes are that :

No skill LEVEl can be higher than 12.

No attributes can be higher than twelve before Species modifiers and to ensure a level playing field, we use the pick system for generating attributes.

No reactions can be bumped more than three points using Advancement picks (had to nip that one in the bud when our Klingon player wanted to buy a +8 to his Quickness and thus Initiative).

I've also had to carefully review Professional Abilities, but even so, I've got some seriously broken characters to contend with.

One of our Marine/Security Officers has maxed out his Quickness (his Agility was already maxed out) and taken has taken the Physically Fit and Responsive Professional Abilities, the Alert, Ambidexterous, Fit, and Two-Handed Fighting edges, and the Double Tap key trait.

This gives him four actions- potentially eight shots when dual-weilding Type II phasers at up to four separate targets in a single round. And this is BEFORE multiple-action penalties begin kicking in.

Needless to say, he's likely to win any phaser fight thrown at him- especially if he's played smart (as he generally is).

And this sort of rules lawyering min/maxing isn't uncommon among my players- though they've been very careful to avoid munchkinism within my earshot (and throwing range).


From a story/script point of view, the experience level of both the characters and players, this has forced me to "up the ante" on my stories and to become quite a bit sneakier (and more Machiavellian) than normal- and to tailor the missions on a ship-by-ship basis.

While I can run any ship in the fleet through a standard Trek adventure (and we've had some real lulu's), I've been forced to get especially creative with Retributor and adopted four basic rules.

1) If my players can shoot their way out of their problems, I've screwed up.
Instead of straight-out phaser fights and toe-to-toe combat, I've pushed Retributor through a series of cloak-and-dagger missions where stealth and thoughtful planning are the key rather than mere offensive firepower.

2) The best stories for my crews are those where personal integrity, overall story, and in-character roleplay matter more than the die rolls and stats.

3) I know what my players/characters are good at and work hard to force them out of their comfort zones and to expand their horizons.

4) My antagonists (if not necessarily their lackeys) are played smart. If they were dumb, they'd have appeared on Voyager.

While I try hard not to deprive my players of the exciting action scenes and satisfaction of combat and fisticuffs, I do my best to make sure these scenes are the rewards for their hard work and not a way to avoid the tough decisions.

Actually, we've had the exact opposite problem several times.

Characters with high skills / attributes failing tasks they wouldn't fail in RL, or on TV-Trek, due to bad player-luck and lousy dice-rolls.

But, I can see your problem. If a doctor cures a disease too fast you don't have an episode. I would suggest making those easy medical tests into extended tests. Make the Doc do some lab-work, like McCoy or Bashir often had to do.

I think our Narrator would probably just set difficulty numbers higher, or use a lot of extended tests. Sometimes that wouldn't work, like in your example of Starship Combat initiative.

But, I think CODA was intended to be more cinematic than ICON. And that's why our group likes it. Of course, you can play a pretty Bad-a$$ character in ICON too.

Shipboard Systems (Flight Control) 3 (5) is about as good as Systems Operations (Flight Control) +10. For their respective game-systems.

You are now facing what every GM/Narrator should ultimately be striving for. Experienced GMs want experienced players/characters so they can take their games to the next level. Your characters have reached the point where they can routinely take on your challenges without breaking a sweat. What’s a GM to do?

Up your game. They have met your challenges so you need to make the challenges harder. Your Chief Engineer can repair that warp core quickly with one hand tied behind his back? Can he do it in an EVA suit? Poisonous environment? In the Dark? While under enemy fire? Some can. However, violently shaking the ship while doing delicate repairs risks catastrophe.

First, stack the deck against them. Make the challenges more difficult. One or two negative factors make it hard. Three or four, dang near impossible. Consider all environmental factors when calculating the TN of the challenges. The Narrator’s Guide between pages 76 and 92 has all kinds of modifiers that you can apply to make your tests more difficult. As an experienced GM/Narrator you can also create your own modifiers for those awkward situations not covered by the rules. Just be sure to apply them fairly and accurately across the board. No favoritism for your NPCs.

Secondly, make your tests more involved. It sounds like some of you are using one or two tests to resolve your dilemmas. Let’s use the Doctor/disease example from the OP. A Doctor can diagnose a COMMON disease rather easily. After all that’s what they went to 12 years of college for. If all they have to do is break out their Physician’s Reference Guide to come up with a treatment then that job could be passed on to a nurse.

No, what you need to do (beforehand) is figure out what might be involved in a challenge around diagnosing and treating an unknown disease. So the away team has informed sickbay and preliminary checks are done (First Aid, Diagnosis, etc.). It’s nothing the Doctors have seen before. They run a check through the Medical records (Computer: Retrieve, Knowledge: Medicine, etc.). It matches nothing in the books. So how do we find out what it is?

Now it becomes a process of experimentation and elimination, which means several tests, some of which are extended for periods of time. First the cause must be determined. That requires tests. No your tri-corder is only a tool. It cannot process your blood chemistry or see into your cells to determine what is going on inside there. So did you risk the ship by beaming an infected person on board or are you doing this investigation in the field? How closely are your medical personnel working with the infected? Are they in suits, separated by force fields, working through glove boxes, or phoning it in? All of these can add to the difficulty.

More importantly though a Medical Professional uses more than one skill (and person) to accomplish so difficult a task. Other fields of study come into play. Chemistry, Anatomy, Biology, Microbiology, DNA analysis, blood serology, disease vectors and symptoms are all examples of skills that can be used to break down the overall dilemma into smaller tasks. Each is important and takes time and resources to accomplish. Don’t over simplify your dilemmas with a roll or two. Use multiple skills and extended tests to recreate the actual effort involved. Involve multiple crew. The Doctor may be the expert but he cannot do it all in a short amount of time. Some tasks will need to be delegated and those crewmen (likely NPCs) won’t have the stellar skill levels as your main cast.

The same can be done for Engineering, Tactical, Security, even Operations. Think out the process and bring the game more to life for your players.

Lastly you as the GM/Narrator have the power to adjust things on the fly. If the challenges are too simple for your players they will grow quickly bored. Conversely if they are too difficult they will get discouraged and quit. So you must be able to tune the play to fit your players. Keep things challenging without making them too hard or easy. Make it hard enough to feel rewarding but not hard enough to be discouraging. The mission as written cannot cover all circumstances.

You are the Narrator. You define the universe the players play in. Don’t take advantage of the players but do challenge them. Feel free to juggle the numbers to fit your game. Q always does.

-Capt. Rouviere
U.S.S. Retributor NCC-74214
REPENDO CANICULA EST

Solution: Make the virii sentient; the Doctor has to use Diplomacy instead : P

Ok, this is weird. I posted a reply to this thread and it didn't go in. Very frustrating.

Anyway, capntrex, I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed your post. Excellent advice to GMs. And exactly the way we handle such situations in our game. Our Narrator would much rather have to come up with new challenges for the players befitting their skills and abilities rather than weaken, or "dumb down" the characters.

Charatcers in Trek, on the shows, and in the movies are all highly skilled.

And when they get to that level in the game, it is the GM's job to make sure the "script" puts the same challenges in front of the characters a good Trek script does for McCoy, Bashir, Spock, or LaForge.

I love some of your ideas - make an Engineer work in an EVA suit, for example. And I love The King's idea - a sentient virus. That has a lot of potential for a good episode, actually, and I may run that past our Narrator and see what she thinks of it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by selek

I'm actually running monthly sessions of CODA Trek for four different Trek clubs (Starfleet Command's Seventh Fleet out of Utah) with two, perhaps three more clubs waiting in the wings.

When we set up our standardized rules for the Fleet, we calculated advancements based on time in the club and actual ages (part of the pitch was playing "yourself as a Starfleet officer"- which means that many of our players have 20+ years worth of experience.

Even using the suggested rules of one advancement per 2 years of "civilian" life and 1 per year of Starfleet service, this means that I'm dealing with some VERY experienced characters- even if the players themselves are not experiences roleplayers.

The core ship (the guinea pig) for our games, U.S.S. Retributor, is the worst of the lot, because when you factor in Professional Abilities, affinities, edges and the rest, I'm routinely seeing skills in the 12/25 range or higher.

Worse, the Retributor crew (far more than the rest of the fleet) are all experienced D&D gamers with a minimum of 15 years experience.

This has forced a number of changes in how I run my games, and in the "standard" rules set for the Fleet as a whole.

Primarily the rules changes are that :

No skill LEVEl can be higher than 12.

No attributes can be higher than twelve before Species modifiers and to ensure a level playing field, we use the pick system for generating attributes.

No reactions can be bumped more than three points using Advancement picks (had to nip that one in the bud when our Klingon player wanted to buy a +8 to his Quickness and thus Initiative).

I've also had to carefully review Professional Abilities, but even so, I've got some seriously broken characters to contend with.

One of our Marine/Security Officers has maxed out his Quickness (his Agility was already maxed out) and taken has taken the Physically Fit and Responsive Professional Abilities, the Alert, Ambidexterous, Fit, and Two-Handed Fighting edges, and the Double Tap key trait.

This gives him four actions- potentially eight shots when dual-weilding Type II phasers at up to four separate targets in a single round. And this is BEFORE multiple-action penalties begin kicking in.

Needless to say, he's likely to win any phaser fight thrown at him- especially if he's played smart (as he generally is).

And this sort of rules lawyering min/maxing isn't uncommon among my players- though they've been very careful to avoid munchkinism within my earshot (and throwing range).


From a story/script point of view, the experience level of both the characters and players, this has forced me to "up the ante" on my stories and to become quite a bit sneakier (and more Machiavellian) than normal- and to tailor the missions on a ship-by-ship basis.

While I can run any ship in the fleet through a standard Trek adventure (and we've had some real lulu's), I've been forced to get especially creative with Retributor and adopted four basic rules.

1) If my players can shoot their way out of their problems, I've screwed up.
Instead of straight-out phaser fights and toe-to-toe combat, I've pushed Retributor through a series of cloak-and-dagger missions where stealth and thoughtful planning are the key rather than mere offensive firepower.

2) The best stories for my crews are those where personal integrity, overall story, and in-character roleplay matter more than the die rolls and stats.

3) I know what my players/characters are good at and work hard to force them out of their comfort zones and to expand their horizons.

4) My antagonists (if not necessarily their lackeys) are played smart. If they were dumb, they'd have appeared on Voyager.

While I try hard not to deprive my players of the exciting action scenes and satisfaction of combat and fisticuffs, I do my best to make sure these scenes are the rewards for their hard work and not a way to avoid the tough decisions.

---

Thanks, selek; awesome advice. We quickly realized some of those flaws with CODA, too, and have customized our game to adapt to them. We've instituted a hard cap of no more than three actions per round (i.e., you can't buy more for your character), and only allow more in any turn for purely defensive (or heroic) actions.

I also took the Key Trait Double Shot (found in the Starfleet Operations book) for my Vulcan Security Chief PC and swiftly discovered how broken it is. It's now completely banned (as it allows two shots every time a person would have one).

Your approach sounds very similar to what I've done, and I try to focus on good moral/ethical dilemmas too. Still, there's plenty of routine stuff that the PCs get to do, and it's tough as a GM to limit them from just using their Skills the way they were intended. Fortunately my players haven't been total munchkins, as they're experienced role-players and generally do an excellent job of role-playing.

I shudder to think how easy it would be for them to hack in and drop the shields of an approaching ship, for example. :rolleyes:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by capntrex

You are now facing what every GM/Narrator should ultimately be striving for. Experienced GMs want experienced players/characters so they can take their games to the next level. Your characters have reached the point where they can routinely take on your challenges without breaking a sweat. What’s a GM to do?

Up your game. They have met your challenges so you need to make the challenges harder. Your Chief Engineer can repair that warp core quickly with one hand tied behind his back? Can he do it in an EVA suit? Poisonous environment? In the Dark? While under enemy fire? Some can. However, violently shaking the ship while doing delicate repairs risks catastrophe.

First, stack the deck against them. Make the challenges more difficult. One or two negative factors make it hard. Three or four, dang near impossible. Consider all environmental factors when calculating the TN of the challenges. The Narrator’s Guide between pages 76 and 92 has all kinds of modifiers that you can apply to make your tests more difficult. As an experienced GM/Narrator you can also create your own modifiers for those awkward situations not covered by the rules. Just be sure to apply them fairly and accurately across the board. No favoritism for your NPCs.

Secondly, make your tests more involved. It sounds like some of you are using one or two tests to resolve your dilemmas. Let’s use the Doctor/disease example from the OP. A Doctor can diagnose a COMMON disease rather easily. After all that’s what they went to 12 years of college for. If all they have to do is break out their Physician’s Reference Guide to come up with a treatment then that job could be passed on to a nurse.

No, what you need to do (beforehand) is figure out what might be involved in a challenge around diagnosing and treating an unknown disease. So the away team has informed sickbay and preliminary checks are done (First Aid, Diagnosis, etc.). It’s nothing the Doctors have seen before. They run a check through the Medical records (Computer: Retrieve, Knowledge: Medicine, etc.). It matches nothing in the books. So how do we find out what it is?

Now it becomes a process of experimentation and elimination, which means several tests, some of which are extended for periods of time. First the cause must be determined. That requires tests. No your tri-corder is only a tool. It cannot process your blood chemistry or see into your cells to determine what is going on inside there. So did you risk the ship by beaming an infected person on board or are you doing this investigation in the field? How closely are your medical personnel working with the infected? Are they in suits, separated by force fields, working through glove boxes, or phoning it in? All of these can add to the difficulty.

More importantly though a Medical Professional uses more than one skill (and person) to accomplish so difficult a task. Other fields of study come into play. Chemistry, Anatomy, Biology, Microbiology, DNA analysis, blood serology, disease vectors and symptoms are all examples of skills that can be used to break down the overall dilemma into smaller tasks. Each is important and takes time and resources to accomplish. Don’t over simplify your dilemmas with a roll or two. Use multiple skills and extended tests to recreate the actual effort involved. Involve multiple crew. The Doctor may be the expert but he cannot do it all in a short amount of time. Some tasks will need to be delegated and those crewmen (likely NPCs) won’t have the stellar skill levels as your main cast.

The same can be done for Engineering, Tactical, Security, even Operations. Think out the process and bring the game more to life for your players.

Lastly you as the GM/Narrator have the power to adjust things on the fly. If the challenges are too simple for your players they will grow quickly bored. Conversely if they are too difficult they will get discouraged and quit. So you must be able to tune the play to fit your players. Keep things challenging without making them too hard or easy. Make it hard enough to feel rewarding but not hard enough to be discouraging. The mission as written cannot cover all circumstances.

You are the Narrator. You define the universe the players play in. Don’t take advantage of the players but do challenge them. Feel free to juggle the numbers to fit your game. Q always does.

-Capt. Rouviere
U.S.S. Retributor NCC-74214
REPENDO CANICULA EST

---

Great stuff, capntrex! You've definitely given me the encouragement (along with the other great posts here) to break the disesase fighting stuff into different tests.

You're absolutely right about that fine line between too easy and too frustrating, and I generally haven't ever had that difficulty in RPGs before; I think doing some extended tests and making them incremental (as well as taking a significant amount of time) will do the trick, especially for the Doctor! :)

Fantastic comments and help all around, folks. Thanks so much for all the help with this! :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Tatterdemalion King

Solution: Make the virii sentient; the Doctor has to use Diplomacy instead : P

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Sneaky! I like this and may steal it one day...

I know I'm late, but just wanted to throw in with Fugazi and Capntrex. I agree w/them. I had every episode include multiple dilemmas all going off at once (like on TV).

The challenge in my group came mostly from problem-solving and managing priorities. Once those were figured out, even the rare dice-failure could spell disaster.

So the players still had a very challenging game. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cdre Bob Wesley

I know I'm late, but just wanted to throw in with Fugazi and Capntrex. I agree w/them. I had every episode include multiple dilemmas all going off at once (like on TV).

The challenge in my group came mostly from problem-solving and managing priorities. Once those were figured out, even the rare dice-failure could spell disaster.

So the players still had a very challenging game. :)

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Good point, Cdre Bob. I plan on having my "zombie virus" taxing the Ship's Doctor at the same time that a space battle happens (thus providing some serious distractions for the Bridge Crew as zombie-like crewmen try to make their way onto the Bridge!) :cool:

With serious props to the help here (especially Fugazi Grrl and selek), I was able to challenge our ship's Doctor with the "Tal Shiar Undead Virus" that I unleashed last night (for the conclusion of our Crew's third episode). Here's the final stats I came up with:


Romulan Diseases

TRI-TEROTHKA VIRUS
Onset: 18 hours (after oral exposure through food or drink)
Potency: +3 TN (10)
Diagnosis: +7 TN (12)*
Treatment: +8 TN (13)
Effect: Fever, stomach cramps, debilitating rash; -1d6 Intelligence per day; when Intelligence reaches 0, the person lapses into a coma

* It also takes an extraordinary success (during the System Operation (Medical) test to diagnose the primary disease) and the character must state they are looking for something else to detect the hidden Tal Shiar Undead Virus

TAL SHIAR UNDEAD VIRUS
Onset: 1 hour after Tri-Terothka Virus is successfully treated
Potency: +3 TN (10)
Diagnosis: +20 TN (25)
Treatment: TN 150 (approximately) and nearly 1 liter of Romulan blood will be needed to create the antidote
Effect: -1d6 Intelligence, Perception, and Agility, and 1d6 Strength per day; body begins to rot and target becomes nearly mindless (will not follow commands or listen to reason) and singularly focused on consuming non-infected human(oid) flesh (will attack to do so)

TN 125 Extended Test Breakdown

Stage 1 (Preliminary Diagnosis)
Test: System Operation (Medical)
TN: 25
Type: Physical
Purpose: To diagnose secondary disease (Tal Shiar Undead Virus)
Additional: +2 if using a Medical Tricorder; -2 to TN if at Point Blank range
Time: 1d6 minutes

Stage 2 (Disease Comparison)
Test: Computer Use (Retrieval)
TN: 25
Type: Academic
Purpose: To compare to known diseases (not possible)
Additional: +1 affinity from Investigate (Retrieval); +5 to TN by loud noises/threats from undead crew
Time: 1d6 hours

Stage 3 (Medical Diagnosis)
Test: Medicine (Anatomy) or Medicine (Exoanatomy)
TN: 25
Type: Academic
Purpose: Diagnose the effects on the host body
Additional: +2 TN if studying non-human(s); +1 affinity from Computer Use (Retrieval), First Aid, Science: Life (Anatomy), and Science: Life (Biology); +5 to TN by loud noises/threats from undead crew
Time: 1d6 hours

Stage 4 (DNA Analysis)
Test: Medicine (DNA Analysis)
TN: 25
Type: Academic
Purpose: Study and analyze the effects of the virus on the host's DNA
Additional: 1 affinity from Science: Life (Anatomy), Science: Life (Biology), and Science: Life (Genetics); +5 to TN by loud noises/threats from undead crew
Time: 5 hours

Stage 5 (Experimentation)
Test: Science: Life (Microbiology)
TN: 25
Type: Academic
Purpose: Understanding the microorganisms involved and the host's immune response via complex, multistage experiments
Additional: +5 if using a Medical Tricorder; +1 affinity from Investigate (Research); +5 to TN by loud noises/threats from undead crew
Time: 1d6 hours

Stage 6 (Antidote Creation)
Test: Science: Physical (Chemistry)
TN: 25
Type: Physical
Purpose: Creation of a specific antidote to counteract the virus
Additional: -5 TN for superior tools (full laboratory), +1 affinity from Investigate (Research)
Time: 1 hour

Okay, I need to read through this whole thing a little more, but you are using the plethora of situational modifiers in the system, right?

The system doesn't really make sense without them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PGoodman13

Okay, I need to read through this whole thing a little more, but you are using the plethora of situational modifiers in the system, right?

---

Pretty much everything you see collects the various situational modifiers. I simply listed most that would be available (to make it easy to figure on the fly during play). For example, I listed the various affinities, even though the PC doing these Medical tests didn't have all of them. And the +5 TN for distractions (for the zombies) was dealt with early on, so hardly figured in most of the tests (the crew cleared the Sickbay area of the 'zombies' first and then cleverly used gas to take care of the remainder).

I just tried to put eveyrthing in one place, rather than having to flip through books during play.

In actual play, the PC made a lot of good rolls over an extended time. One of them was even a combined test with another PC. All told the Doctor diagnosed the disease, did experimentation and tests, and synthesized an antidote in under 14 hours (a number of the tests he did as complete successes, cutting the base time in half).

Note that in my disease write-ups the word "Extraordinary" should be changed to "Superior". I keep forgetting that Trek does it a little differently than Lord of the Rings. :o

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Doug Taylor

Note that in my disease write-ups the word "Extraordinary" should be changed to "Superior". I keep forgetting that Trek does it a little differently than Lord of the Rings. :o

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Upon getting home and re-checking my book, I see that Trek does indeed have "extraordinary". They don't have "superior" (like LotR) and extraordinary occurs with 10+ over the TN (as opposed to 11, as LotR does). Whew, I think I've got it straight now. :)

Doug, what a wonderful write-up ! I love it. With your permission this disease might manage to pester one of our ships.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fugazi Grrl

Doug, what a wonderful write-up ! I love it. With your permission this disease might manage to pester one of our ships.

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Absolutely! Have at it! :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Doug Taylor

Upon getting home and re-checking my book, I see that Trek does indeed have "extraordinary". They don't have "superior" (like LotR) and extraordinary occurs with 10+ over the TN (as opposed to 11, as LotR does). Whew, I think I've got it straight now. :)

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Check page 81 of the Narrator's Guide (Table 6.12). It has Complete at +1, Superior at +6 and Extraordinary at +11. I think that's supposed to supersede the PG.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sea Tyger

Check page 81 of the Narrator's Guide (Table 6.12). It has Complete at +1, Superior at +6 and Extraordinary at +11. I think that's supposed to supersede the PG.

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Thanks, Davy. I saw that over on the other thread being discussed (and I never realized that there was a different chart in the NG and the PG). Glad to know that the one I have been using (which matches with LotR) is the correct one after all.

BTW, I've loved the writeups of your adventures that Patrick linked to before (the adventures of the U.S.S. Drake on the Real Roleplaying Forums); great stories and you did an excellent job! :)

Doug, thanks for the praise. It's been fun putting adventures together; the writing credit, though, has to be shared with my very excellent players.