Seeking feedback on LOTR races idea

[Scottomir]

A while ago on this board there was some discussion about how some people felt the races in the LOTR RPG didn't adequately reflect how they are depicted in Tolkien's books. I especially recall a few people complaining that the Dunedain are the weakest men. Other folks noted that the races had not even a semblance of game balance between them. I've been thinking about this off and on for the past while, and now that I am about to run my second LOTR chronicle I've put more serious thought into it. I would really like some feedback on my attempt below at an alternative optional framework for the LOTR races. My aim was not to make them all "equal" in the D&D sense (a Noldo should be slightly better than a Sinda who should be slightly better than a Wood-elf, etc.), but rather to make every race at least a viable choice depending on the kind of character you want to play. Where I thought a race was already underpowered (the Dunedain), I simply added another +1. For several races I have just rearranged the adjustments to better capture my sense of Tolkien's races (how can the Noldor not have +1 Stamina after trucking across the Helcaraxe??). But for a few races I thought that it might be better to strengthen pre-existing weak abilities or create better new abilities.

Anyway, if you're at all interested in this question, I invite you to read through my proposed framework below and reply with criticism and recommendations. Thanks!

* * *

Optional – Alternate Adjustments for the Races: This optional variation provides racial adjustments and abilities that are somewhat more balanced and closer to how the races are depicted in Tolkien’s books.

The Dwarves (Khazâd): +1 Strength, +2 Vitality
• Khazâd ai-mênu: When a Dwarf spends a point of Courage on any physical test in battle against Orcs, he receives an extra +2 to the test result in addition to the usual amount.
• Healthy: Dwarves receive a +6 bonus to Stamina or other tests to resist disease and a +2 bonus to Stamina tests to resist poison (p. 246) or benefit from natural healing (p. 247).

The Elves (Noldor): +2 Bearing, +1 Perception, +1 Nimbleness, +1 Vitality, +1 Wits
The Elves (Sindar): +2 Nimbleness, +1 Bearing, +1 Perception, +1 Vitality
The Elves (Silvan): +2 Perception, +1 Bearing, +1 Nimbleness
• Call of the Sea (Noldor and Sindar): The desire to sail across the sea to the Undying Lands is never far from the minds of the High-elves and Grey-elves. If life in Middle-earth becomes a painful burden, they despair and turn their thoughts to the Blessed Realm. Whenever they suffer injuries that reduce them to Incapacitated or Near Death, or suffer the effect of a sorcery spell, or witness a beloved friend die, Sindar lose 2 Courage points and Noldor (whose hearts are even closer to the Uttermost West) lose 3 Courage points. If the character loses more Courage points than he currently possesses, he gains 1 point of Corruption. If comforted by a friend or healed of his hurts, the Elf may regain lost Courage or remove the Corruption by succeeding on a Willpower test at TN 15 (the character may attempt this test once at the end of each subsequent scene).

Hobbits (Fallohides): +1 Nimbleness, +1 Perception, +1 Vitality, -2 Strength
Hobbits (Harfoots): +2 Nimbleness, +1 Perception, +1 Vitality, -1 Bearing, -2 Strength
Hobbits (Stoors): +1 Nimbleness, +2 Perception, +1 Vitality, -1 Bearing, -2 Strength
• Tough as Old Tree-Roots: Hobbits possess a curious toughness. They receive a +2 bonus to Willpower tests to resist Corruption (p. 234) and Stamina tests to resist poison (p. 246) or benefit from natural healing (p. 247).

Men (Dúnedain): +1 Bearing, +1 Wits, +1 Strength or Vitality (player’s choice)
Men (Middle): +1 Strength, +1 Vitality [unchanged]
Men (of Darkness): +1 Nimbleness, +1 Strength, -1 Wits [unchanged]
Men (Wild): +1 Perception, +1 Strength, +1 Vitality, -1 Bearing

[Captain Novaes]

Hmmm... I don't really see much need to tinker with the Elves. They are intended to be the most powerful race, anyway, much better than Men or Dwarves. Play balance is not an issue here.

That said, I can appreciate some of your ideas. "Call of the Sea", most notably, though I wouldn't give Corruption points for that. I was already thinking into something like that, but your idea of losing Courage is really interesting.

Also, I was always befuddled by Dwarves gaining +2 in Strenght while Dúnedain only got more Bearing and Wits. I'll apply your idea of giving +1 to Strength or Vitality to Dúnedain and give Dwarves only a +1 to Strength.

[Ineti]

If you haven't done so already, you might want to check out the Dwarves book included in the Moria boxed set. There's stat adjustments for the seven Houses of Dwarves. Good stuff.

[Captain Novaes]

I haven't. The Moria Box is a bit hard to find in my neck of the woods -- not to say that it's quite pricey :P

But I'll check it once it's translated into Portuguese, and the price tag lowers a bit.

Care to comment something?

[Ineti]

Originally posted by Captain Novaes
Care to comment something?

Nope; I'm happy with the races as they are in the core book, and none of my players have raised any objections or concerns.

Looks like you have some good stuff, and if it works for you, all the better.

[Captain Novaes]

I meant, comment about the Moria Box... I'm really curious as to the contents, as no one I know bought it.

As for the Race modifiers... I really have issues with Dwarves being stronger than Men. Is there any indication in the novels that Dwarves tend to be stronger?

[Scottomir]

I am very unsure about this whole endeavor, which is why I tossed it up here for public critique. Some of my players and I were heavily influenced by the outstanding ICE Middle-earth CCG in the mid-90s. Even with extremely limited stats (prowess, body, corruption, and a range of classes), that game did a marvelous job of distinguishing between the characters and their races while keeping them nicely balanced. I understand that a RPG is much more detailed than a CCG, and I agree that Tolkien's races are not "balanced" (Elves are supposed to be super powerful), but I still wish that the designers had at least incorporated a nod to balance.

I, too, was surprised that the Elves weren't given any kind of drawback. Yeah, they are supposed to be powerful...but Tolkien's books are filled with guilt/despair for the Noldor and call-of-the-sea for the Sindar. I'm really not sure how my "Call of the Sea" attempt will play out...and the giving them corruption idea is a throwback to that CCG. It isn't "evil" corruption, it is world-weariness that will make them depart Middle-earth if they get too much.

As for Dwarves, I don't find any of Tolkien's descriptions suggesting they are super strong. They are brave, fierce, implacable, hardy, and remarkably resilient, but they didn't have super strength to wrestle themselves away from trolls in "The Hobbit"...and in "The Two Towers" I remember how Gimli saved Eomer from the orcs after hiding from the Wild Men who seemed "over large" to him. So I can understand a +1 bonus to STR just to give them something nice in game terms, but +2 strikes me as extravagant.

But Ineti's right: for people who aren't worked up over technical balance issues, the races work as they are. The Dwarves are tough, the Elves f'ing rule, and the Dunedain are noble and wise. But I don't think I am alone among gamers when I look at the game book at say: Dunedain are the weakest Men...what?!? Noldor crossed the Helcaraxe but don't get Vitality bonus...what?!?

[Turin]

Originally posted by Scottomir
I understand that a RPG is much more detailed than a CCG, and I agree that Tolkien's races are not "balanced" (Elves are supposed to be super powerful), but I still wish that the designers had at least incorporated a nod to balance.

But Ineti's right: for people who aren't worked up over technical balance issues, the races work as they are. The Dwarves are tough, the Elves f'ing rule, and the Dunedain are noble and wise. But I don't think I am alone among gamers when I look at the game book at say: Dunedain are the weakest Men...what?!? Noldor crossed the Helcaraxe but don't get Vitality bonus...what?!?

No you are not alone. I added to both dwarves and men to help balance with the elves. I find that they don't need to be completely equal but need to have different strengths. So far it has worked well, we have been using the rules for a year and a half now.

I personally believe that there should be larger differences between the different races. I did the following for my races.

Elves :

Noldor: +2 Bearing, +2 Perception, +2 Nimbleness, +1 Vitality,+1 Wits; Removed Inner Light from PCs.

Sindar: +1 Bearing, +2 Nimbleness, +2 Perception, +1 Vitality.

Silvan: +1 Bearing, +2 Nimbleness, +2 Perception

Dwarves: Use the additions to the race from Moria. Increased the picks to 6 per Advancement instead of 5. Armour like a second skin: Any dwarf may have armour on at anytime. This works more in my narration then any set rule. I would allow the dwarf to have his armour on at anytime even sleeping.

Hobbits:

Fallohides: +1 Nimbleness, +2 Perception, + 1 Wits, -4 Strength. +1 bonus to Willpower

Harfoots: +2 Nimbleness, +1 Perception, -1 Bearing -4 Strength

Stoors: +1 Nimbleness, +1 Perception, -1 Bearing, -3 Strength, +1 Health

All hobbits gain the Not a threat status from foes. Again more how I narrate then anything, but in combat the hobbit is view much like a child from any race would and is over looked. This allows for a similar situation to Merry and the Witch King, he just didn't take the hobbit seriously and it came back to hurt him.

Hobbits gain 7 picks per Advancement instead of the normal 5.

Men:

Dunedain: +1 Bearing, +2 Strength, +2 Vitality, +1 Wits -4 to corruption tests.

Middle Man: +1 Strength, +1 Vitality also gain region base bonuses. The only two that I have worked out are Beornings get Woodcrafty for free and Bear Tranformation for 4 Picks after 6 Advancements. Rohirrim get Ride Skill two ranks for every pick spent and may accuire Knight order for 3 picks instead of 5.

All men gain 7 Picks on odd and 8 Picks on even advancements.

Just thought I would share since this was one of the first house rules that I developed.

[Sarge]

Turin, have you had any problems with characters advancing too fast? With all the extra picks, it seems to me that your characters might max out their stats even sooner than normal. And a lot of people seem to think it's already too easy to max out stats even with the normal number of picks.

[Ineti]

Originally posted by Captain Novaes
I meant, comment about the Moria Box... I'm really curious as to the contents, as no one I know bought it.

Sure, it's a great supplement. There's a 32 page book on the Dwarves, detailing the seven Houses, the history of the Dwarves, and some new elite orders and stats and such.

Then there's a 96 page book all about Moria, and includes some new game rules and material, and a great generation system for Moria. The set comes with a bunch of generic map tiles that you can use to custom create your own passages through Moria.

Add in a couple larger maps, and you have a really nice boxed set. There are liberal use of movie stills and most of the original art (of which there is quite a bit) is top-notch. I'd definitely recommend it.

[Ineti]

Turin, interesting house rule. What's your justification for giving some races extra picks and others less? Do Men and Hobbits really advance that much more than the other races? I share Sarge's concern that PCs would advance skills and abilities much too fast with the added picks.

[Turin]

The rules for increased advancement pick are based on a couple of things first it was a play balance issue. Even with it the elves still have a dominate role in the campaign, which I don't have a problem with. Second it is based around what I feel the metallity of a race that lives much longer then others. Do to their long lives they are more lackadaisical about learning new things and developing new skills and traits.
When I first decided to do this there were two approaches that I figured would work 1 the way I do it with increased picks and 2 to modify the amount of experience needed to advance. I chose the way I do it so that players could have a steady advancement system.

Right now I have 5 players that are between 8 and 12 advancements each, 2 Dunadan, 2 Silvan and 1 Noldo, the dwarf died about 3 months ago. I have not felt like they were gaining to quickly, but I also have house rules for additional limits to other traits.

No skill can gain more then 1 rank an advancement unless worked out with the narrator. You can only increase the following by one per advancement edges, order ability, reactions, attributes and courage. That is a character with 5 picks could get 1 new edge and 1 order ability, but not two edges.

Every trait has a soft limit, once that initial limit is reached the costs for that type of trait are doubled. The Additional Steps basically detail how many times an improvement may be purchased before the cost doubles. So if the additional steps value is 1 then every time a character purchases an im-provement the cost doubles, if it is 2 then after improving twice it doubles.

Type__________Initial Limit__ Additional Steps
Skills ____________12___________1
Attributes_______12 + racial______ 2
Reactions_______5 increases_______ 2
Edges___________15 total ________2
Courage ________5 increases______ 1
Order Abilities____12 total_________2
Health_________5 increases_______1
Spell Picks_______20 total_________4
OK well I have to work on my skill at table building in these forums.

But as of yet no one has gone past any of the limits. So I have not been able to see how well they work or that in itself shows how well they work.

Also I let characters save picks from one advancement to another. They must assign the picks to a trait that they will increase, but until the amount required for increase is assigned they gain no benefit. So if someone wanted to assign 1 pick per advancement to a favoured attribute after 4 advancements that attribute would increase or he could spend 1 pick one advancement and then pay the reamaining 3 picks his next advancement.

Well I think I may have gone past the original questions, but I hope I aswered them in here somewhere.

[Turin]

As for maxing out stats the reason it is easy for players to max out a stat is because you can normally spend 2 picks per skill per advancement. If it is an order skill that is two ranks that you are increasing so if a character started with a 6 in armed combat they would have a 12 in 3 advancements. I also have a rule that you cannot apply more misc. modifiers to a skill then 1/2 it's ranks rounded up. It is too easy to have lots of edges that all stack for armed combat for example. So I use this hard limit on bonuses until I have the time to come up with a different approach.

I have found that it combined with my other rules makes for more rounded characters. The Elves are already rounded by virtue of their racial abilities. Men just get more to pick what other intrests they have.

[Scottomir]

Wow, Turn, looks like your group really took the bull by the horns and came up with some pretty massive revisions. I was only considering minor tinkering, and even then a couple of my friends have not been very receptive. Your considerable battery of revisions are thought-provoking, especially the "regional" ability for Men (alas, I think that this might prove to be quite trying and hard to balance). It seems to me that your revisions may balance some of the races vis-a-vis each other, though in general they all strike me as considerably more powerful. I'm wary of the core book Noldor, and your Noldor are through the roof.

The "bonus picks" for certain races is also a really intriguing idea that hadn't occurred to me, but I share the fear that in execution it could become really unbalanced by providing even more encouragement for min-maxing stats. I think it might also have the awkward effect of making certain races rather lame upfront but demigods after 10 Advancements or so. I'm curious, how many advancements have you handed out to your characters so far?

One more thought that might be interesting to share here is a common from one of my players about the difference between "player-controlled" abilities and "GM-controlled" abilities. Players are naturally more attracted to abilities that are under their control or which are static and don't require GM arbitration (e.g., +2 on all Intimidate tests). GM-controlled abilities, no matter how nice or how powerful, are always a little suspect to most players because they can never rely on being able to use them in situations they might like, because ultimately it is the GM who decided when they come into play. Your "Not a Threat" ability for Hobbits is the perfect example of this quandry. It is a REALLY cool (and potentially amazingly useful) ability...but also one that players might be lukewarm toward, because it is always the GM who decided when this cool ability applies. The most they can do is suggest and plead and then sulk.

[Turin]

Originally posted by Scottomir
Wow, Turn, looks like your group really took the bull by the horns and came up with some pretty massive revisions. I was only considering minor tinkering, and even then a couple of my friends have not been very receptive. Your considerable battery of revisions are thought-provoking, especially the "regional" ability for Men (alas, I think that this might prove to be quite trying and hard to balance). It seems to me that your revisions may balance some of the races vis-a-vis each other, though in general they all strike me as considerably more powerful. I'm wary of the core book Noldor, and your Noldor are through the roof.

Yes I have come up with a lot of new stuff most of which came to me as I first read the book. I find the power in the Core Rules is more apt to min-maxing. Most of the additions that I have made are to balance out things and make characters purchase a range of different things. You can't just take and isolate one of my rules. The Noldor are powerfull as I list them but they are in the book also. Really I don't think that +1 to Nimbleness and Perception (the only difference between my Noldo and yours) is through the roof especially if you allow for the inner light. Which to me is the most overpowering thing about Noldor characters.

For the regional traits I don't see that as being any harder to balance then the regular edges and order abilities. I felt that the two I did come up with were fairly well balanced.

Originally posted by Scottomir
The "bonus picks" for certain races is also a really intriguing idea that hadn't occurred to me, but I share the fear that in execution it could become really unbalanced by providing even more encouragement for min-maxing stats. I think it might also have the awkward effect of making certain races rather lame upfront but demigods after 10 Advancements or so. I'm curious, how many advancements have you handed out to your characters so far?

I'm not sure how this would make anyone more lame upfront, but for the demi-gods I don't have one in my group. I had posted earlier that the characters are between 8 and 14 advancements but after playing tonight I relized that they are really between 9 and 15 advancements. So since my rules limit the number of times a character can buy specific traits and since I limit the amount that a character can apply towards the misc. bonus of a skill the characters are broad more then vertical.

For example the most potent in armed combat of my group is a Silvan warrior of 13 advancements. His total skill bonus with his long sword is 20 since he has a 12 nimbleness. That doesn't include his weapons magical bonus, but it is still higher then the 15 advancement Dunadan warrior who has a 19 total. Now I am not sure how your group is but I have read of lots of people who have characters with higher skill totals then that at a fraction of the advancements. And compared to the normal system you could achieve that with 0 advancements.

For the men I have found that the players have purchased a good selection of skills with their extra points. The one has spent advancement picks on Craft:Cooking since she was the one that always took last watch and was usually making breakfast.

So since I am not sure what characters from other groups are capable of at similar advancements I can't say whether others would consider them demi-gods, but they are deffinately not as far as I am concerned.

Originally posted by Scottomir
One more thought that might be interesting to share here is a common from one of my players about the difference between "player-controlled" abilities and "GM-controlled" abilities. Players are naturally more attracted to abilities that are under their control or which are static and don't require GM arbitration (e.g., +2 on all Intimidate tests). GM-controlled abilities, no matter how nice or how powerful, are always a little suspect to most players because they can never rely on being able to use them in situations they might like, because ultimately it is the GM who decided when they come into play. Your "Not a Threat" ability for Hobbits is the perfect example of this quandry. It is a REALLY cool (and potentially amazingly useful) ability...but also one that players might be lukewarm toward, because it is always the GM who decided when this cool ability applies. The most they can do is suggest and plead and then sulk.

Yes and I can see this, as a player I rarely liked having something that was based on the GM's whim. Though sometimes I found them to actually be more powerful then if you tried to cover it with rules. So it really depended on the GM and how consistent he was in it's use. Since no one wanted to play a hobbit (Even before I made any changes) I never tested this out. So I don't know how well it would work, but it does fit into a base system that I use for unorginized melee. Where the foes objectives are sketchy at best. Unless they had orders other wise I would only have a enemy attacking the hobbit on a 2D6 roll of 4 or less. That is if the hobbit is between them and another character and the hobbit hasn't caused a wound level of damage to them. If a hobbit is behind other characters I wouldn't even make a roll, they would not attack the hobbit until all other "real" foes are down. Once a hobbit is left behind he can use stealth to move unnoticed.

Once again I haven't tested at all so I don't know how it really would pan out, I actually think that I would have to change it especially for a rogue hobbit with Treacherous Blow, it could be unbalancing.

I hope to someday post all my house rules so that they can be viewed as a collective, it is hard to get a accurate architectur from the random posts that I have been making.

*edited Silvan Warrior has 14 Nimbleness instead of 12.