Chronicle (Wood and Stone)? : House Rules

[Arknight]

Hi all!

Just thought I would post a couple of the house rules I'm using regarding character creation and combat for my LOTR chronicle (I haven't come up with a real name for it, but since it takes place in lower Mirkwood, Misty Mountains, and Fangorn I thought Wood and Stone would work. )

Anyway, here goes:

A) Lore Skills - Lore subskills regarding races and regions are grouped as follows instead of as in the Core Book: Region (Realm, Culture, History), Race (History, Culture)

B) Attack Resulting in Extrordinary Success: If an attack roll exceeds the required to-hit by an amount that results in an extraordinary success, use the following table to determine the advantages:
11 - 15 over to hit: Do maximum weapon damage or utilize a special result option from the core book pg. X?
16 - 20 over to hit: Do maximum weapon damage and gain a special result.
21+ over to hit: Target suffers a mortal wound eliminating any remaining health levels.

C) Additional special effect: Open a gap in armor - Target's Armor Protection value reduced by 3 pts. This does not effect Armour of Heroes or any other type of 'natural' reduction.

I'd appreciate any comments, etc.

Tom

[Scottomir]

Originally posted by Arknight
Hi all!
A) Lore Skills - Lore subskills regarding races and regions are grouped as follows instead of as in the Core Book: Region (Realm, Culture, History), Race (History, Culture)

This is an idea that has been floating around on these boards for a while now, and I agree that it has a lot of merit to it. Some contributor here a while ago suggested that a formulation like "Lore: Elves (History)" is more useful than the formulation in the core book. The only problem is just how fine-grained can you possibly get. "Lore: Noldor-elves (Second Age History)"? "Lore: Southern Dunedain (Culture)?" This is the reason why I've not yet tried any new formulations with my group.

21+ over to hit: Target suffers a mortal wound eliminating any remaining health levels.

Then be prepared for your very little guys to drop your very big guys. This is the same problem with the "mook" accelerated pacing in the core book: it only favors accuracy, not size or strength. So your big troll with Defence 10 only has Def 6 against a hobbit, giving a hobbit with a shortbow and better chance of an instant kill. (In fact, if your hobbit has 10 Nim, 12 ranks in Ranged Combat, a specialty in shortbow, and the Accurate edge, the hobbit gets an instant kill against a troll by rolling 8+).

But your idea of extra effects for higher levels of successes in combat is pretty popular around here. I know some people have even gone so far as to create "critical hit" tables for the game. I myself prefer a simpler approach: +1d6 damage on a superior success, +2d6 on an extraordinary success.

C) Additional special effect: Open a gap in armor - Target's Armor Protection value reduced by 3 pts.

So this is something that a player could choose to do if he gets a superior success on an attack roll? It's a pretty good idea, especially if you're not already granting any kind of bonus damage for a superior success. Another way you could tie this into the game is as a "called shot": the TN needed to hit is increased, but if you do hit you negate the armor damage absorption.

[Captain Novaes]

I was running the last of a long series of playtests yesterday. I was trying to see what I could expect of the level of play if all character had 20+ Advancements. It was wild, I tell you... 2 of the 3 player characters ended up with +20 on their Armed and/ or Ranged Combat skills. The Archer of the group kept asking for called shots to bypass armor, and kept rolling Extraordinary successes even after I applied a +11 TN modifier.

Scottomir, I see your point about relative strenghts and sizes of opponents. But then again, how did Bard slay Smaug with just one Black Arrow...? As I plan on having a Dragon for the big enemy on the campaing which is about to start, that's a question I must be prepared to answer.

[Arknight]

Originally posted by Scottomir
This is an idea that has been floating around on these boards for a while now, and I agree that it has a lot of merit to it. Some contributor here a while ago suggested that a formulation like "Lore: Elves (History)" is more useful than the formulation in the core book. The only problem is just how fine-grained can you possibly get. "Lore: Noldor-elves (Second Age History)"? "Lore: Southern Dunedain (Culture)?" This is the reason why I've not yet tried any new formulations with my group.

Yeah, this is something that's run through my head too as to how far and what other types of Lore there might be. I may try to come up with a smapp list and post it for comments, additions, etc. :-)

Originally posted by Scottomir
Then be prepared for your very little guys to drop your very big guys. This is the same problem with the "mook" accelerated pacing in the core book: it only favors accuracy, not size or strength. So your big troll with Defence 10 only has Def 6 against a hobbit, giving a hobbit with a shortbow and better chance of an instant kill. (In fact, if your hobbit has 10 Nim, 12 ranks in Ranged Combat, a specialty in shortbow, and the Accurate edge, the hobbit gets an instant kill against a troll by rolling 8+).

Hmmm.. yeah, forgot about that size diff thing. Right now, the PC's are only about halfway to maximum ranks, so it's a visible difference. Might have to change it to 2xMaximum or something like that.

One question: If you roll a 6 on a die for damage, do you get to reroll it and add like when rolling a skill check?

Tom

[Captain Novaes]

One question: If you roll a 6 on a die for damage, do you get to reroll it and add like when rolling a skill check?

Tom [/B]

Nope.

Damage rolls are not skill tests, hence they are not bound by the same rules. Furthermore, you can have different dice pools for damage (1d6 +3, 2d6 +5, 4d6, etc.). How can you tell which dice to roll for extra damage?

Skill tests are only re-rolled if they come up double sixes. If by some Edge or Order Ability you get extra dice, only the two highest values are used, so the odds of getting double sixes improve. But that doesn't apply to damage at all.

[Helegond]

Remember, you only roll again the dies when you roll DOUBLE SIXES!!! And you get to roll only one die. Then, if you keep rolling 6, keep adding.

Going back to the thread, I'm thinking in terms of:

- Superior success (1-5 above the TN): 2x the Strength Modifier, +size modifier.
- Extra success (6-10 above the TN): 3x the Strength Modifier, +2x size modifier.
- Extraordinary Success (11+ above the TN): 4x the Strength Modifier, +3x size modifier.

In that way, a Extraordinary success from my Rohirrim with +3 Str. Mod. would give him a +12 DMG, aside from the damage of the weapon. If he was a troll, he would get even more! (Don't remember the stats for a troll, so couldn't write them....:P)

Cheers,

Helegond

PS.: The successes are wrongly named, because I don't have my book here...:P

[Captain Novaes]

Hey, Helegond... just noticed you're from my neck of woods as well!

I'm just starting a campaing, so drop me a line if you're interested in exchanging thoughts and ideas.

[Scottomir]

Originally posted by Captain Novaes
Scottomir, I see your point about relative strenghts and sizes of opponents. But then again, how did Bard slay Smaug with just one Black Arrow...? As I plan on having a Dragon for the big enemy on the campaing which is about to start, that's a question I must be prepared to answer.

I would love an answer myself, Captain. Alas, I fear the CODA rules really aren't set up for anything like this. Probably the best system was ALTERNITY with its wound vs. mortal damage. In that system, a dragon could suck up huge amounts of wound damage without being bothered, but even a little mortal damage was bad news. In CODA damage is damage, so I can't think of a great way to represent what Bard did to Smaug. Maybe his called shot to the bare patch did double damage, reduced Smaug to Injured (-3), and forced Smaug to make (and fail) a Nimbleness test to keep airborn. Then Smaug felt into the lake and drowned to death.

That's as good as I got!

[Captain Novaes]

It's a start...!

Unfortunately (for my players, that is) this Dragon won't have such weak spots. In fact, they may well have to out-think the beast, as they won't have the weapons or the might necessary to slay it.

As players will be players, I'm almost certain they'll try to attack the dragon anyway, so I'm trying to think of some way to at least give them a slim chance of succes.

[Ineti]

Originally posted by Captain Novaes
As players will be players, I'm almost certain they'll try to attack the dragon anyway, so I'm trying to think of some way to at least give them a slim chance of succes.

Dragons are extremely tough monsters in Tolkien. Really tough. Like almost Balrog-scary tough. No low advancement hero should even be thinking of attacking a dragon unless they're Bard with a black arrow or have an army of thousands backing them up. It's folly. You shouldn't have to give them an out if they're going to be insane enough to challenge a dragon.

You mention the dragon's going to be a main adversary in the game, right? What happens if they meet the dragon early on, you give them a chance to beat it, and they beat it. What then? You'll have to come up with a bigger threat, and there aren't many threats bigger than a dragon short of a Balrog, Sauron, Shelob, or Melkor himself.

Think carefully before making it too easy.

For my game, at least, the heroes faced a dragon twice. The first time they all failed their Willpower check against Fear and ran to live another day, and the second time they made for the hills as fast as they could while Radagast did what he could to dissuade the dragon from pursuing. The chance was there for the heroes to face the dragon directly, but self-preservation kicked in and they took discretion over valour.

[Captain Novaes]

Hehehe, point taken! Anyway, by "slim chance" I figured they would have to go through a gruelling series of adventures to find an enchanted spear - one that has a Bane-spell made permanent into it, so it offers +3 to Armed Combat tests against Dragons and ignores half of the protection of Dragon armor.

Even that may not be enough, as in true Pendragon-style adventure, the Dragon itself sits guarding the magical spear.

I should lay out the plot sometime for appreciation of you all. I promise to do it as soon as time permits.

[Turin]

I do like the idea for Lore Skills and since I haven't had time to come up with anything else just yet I think I will use them in my campaign.

As for the additional success and damage, for every degree of success beyond Complete I increase total damage done by .5, this is the final damage that is rolled and all bonuses applied. This carries on after the listed degrees of success at a rate of every 5 more the damage increases by .5.

6 - 10 Superior Success - 1.5 Damage
11 - 15 Extraordinary Success - 2.0 Damage
16 - 20 (Not named) - 2.5
21 - 25 (Not named) - 3.0
+5 = .5 increase

This gives the odd shot that strikes home and can fell a dragon. In one case the dwarf did 54 points of damage to a flat footed orc and another a troll that was blinded smashed the silvan archer for 48 points of damage.

Adding my rule for becoming stunned or unconscious do to wounds make it possible for anyone to be taken out by any foe. It may require some outrageous roll but it is still possible.

This has caused the players to take every encounter seriously since you never know when a orc archer is going to score the hit of it's life.

[Arknight]

Wow, lots of good stuff.

Turin: I like the way for that damage better than I've been doing it. I think I might wind up doing it this way:

11-15 Max Damage or ( Roll damage + Special effect )
16-20 2x Damage and a Special Effect
21-25 2.5 Damage "
every 5+ = +.5 damage

I think allowing the special effect can more than make up for the loss of the .5 multiple. I haven't decided whether to use the -3 Armor Value reduction non-cumulative or whether it should be -1 cumulative and effect natural reduction values or not.

Would the cumulative affecting natural seem a bit too powerful?

Tom