USH'S LORD OF THE RINGS GAME- Combat and General rules reference

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Ushgarak

Ushgarak

Ushgarak

Ushgarak

Ushgarak

Ushgarak
Other rolls

You do, of course have a full set of skills, not all of which are used in combat. However, the function for other rolls is entirely simple. I will set a target relevant to the difficulty of the task. I tehn make a d100 roll, add the relevant skill to the result, and see what the final number is in relation to the target.

However, unlike some systems you may know of, this is not an absolute success or fail. The numbers involved simply give me a relevant idea of success. If you roll under the target number, it may not mean an absolute fail, but it might bmean a long time was taken about it, or that the job was done badly. Rolling a long way over the target number often brings great benefits as well.

I have more tables to refer to that help my discern what the final effect of a roll is. However, the best way to show you an example of how this works is with Manoeuvre rolls, which are the simplest:

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Say, for example, you need to clmaber up a difficult roll in an emergency. This would be a Manoeuvre roll, and so would be made on your current Manoeuvre score, which depends on your armour type, of course.

I set the difficulty as 'Medium' which means, basically, you want a 116 to do the job as well as can be expected- which I would say is climbing the hill in one round (a round is about ten seconds)

I make the rolls for everyone and see what the results are. In this case:

Anything under -25 (either because of a critical failure or because you are REALLY poor at moving in heavy armour and haver a high minus to your Maneouvre score) is actually a Fail, meaning you don't really move at all!

Other numbers give proportions of success. For example, a 66-75 gives a '50' meaning you are 50% of the way there, so after one round you are halfway up the hill and can move again next turn.

An 86-95 is a 70%.

116-135 is 100%, meaning you get all the way up in one go.

Anything beyond that, and you actually get up the Hill quicker than one round and I may allow you to quickly take another action- like slash at the big Orc you find at the top...

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Like I say, Manoeuvre rolls are the simplest to describe, but that is the basic principle of non-offensive rolls- there is a relative difficulty, and you do well or badly according to where you roll in relation to that difficulty.

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Experience- or xp

Basics

This is the big one. Many of the liabilities of your characters can have disappeared by the time you are level 3. You need to go up levels as quickly as possible! However, advancing can be difficult and you are not expected to go past level 5 in any amount of short time at all.

You will note you all started at 10000 points of experience. This makes you level 1, as opposed to level zero which is what the average guard on the street would be. So you are all a little better. Level 1 is the 'trained soldier' level. Worth remembering that the typical Arnorian or Gondrian soldier, then, is about as good as you are now.

Level 1 is also the level of a Weak Orc- or Goblin. That is something else worth bearing in mind- the 'typical' Orc is Level 3, which puts the war between Orc and Man in perspecticve when you consider that their average warrior is better than what Man can field. You will note that right now I keep making sure you are always meeting raiding parties and other such things when it comes to Orcs- if you met elements of the Witch-King's main army at this point you would not last long! Elite Orc units are at level 5, and these are of a deadliness that will not be surpassed until the Uruk-Hai come along.

(And also remember that these are just levels for the nameless ranks of Orcish foot soldiers. Orcish personalities- people with names that you may meet and have as enemies- can be any level I wish them to be, acorrding to how dangerous I want them).

For the first five levels, each 10000 points of experience are worth one level- 10000 for level one, 20000 for level 2, 30000 for level 3 etc. AFter level 5, things slow down and they cost 20000 each, so it becomes 70000 for level 6, 90000 for level 7, and so on. Right now, the difference between the veteran characters and the new characters is large- but after a while, it will be barely significant once you need much larger numbers to make a difference.

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Gaining experience

Players of RPs in real life or on computers/consoles should be no stronager to the concept of gaining experience by success. However, whilst following the ame theory, this system is a little different.

First of all, there is no group distribution of experience at the point at which it is earned (more on that below. If Player A is in a big fight and kills an Orc, HE scores for it- players B, C and D score nothing.

Secondly, experience is not added on at the point it is earned. Instead it is banked (I will likely open a thread for this) and all experience is added together to players in one big lump at a time I declare is appropriate.

Thirdly, you can score experience for almost ANYTHING. Here is a list of things you sacore for:

Doing damage.
Causing a wound
Killing
Taking damage
Taking a wound
Sucessful manoeuvres
Casting a spell
Travelling (yup, seriously!)
And probably more...

And fourthly, and most importantly of all, we have this system's Socialist ethic of redistributing bonus experience!

Bonus Idea Point redistribution

This is where experience becomes fun, as other players beg for different players to get experience just so it goes into the idea pot.

Basically, at the point at which I decide it is time to give out basic experience, a bonus experience award is given to players., The total size of this award is equal to half the experience that EVERYONE has banked- this is why you want the whole party, not just yourself, to gain as much experience as possible.

But this bonus experience is distributed amongst the party- but it is not distributed evenly. Instead, what happens is this. I draw up a list of all the good ideas and heroic deeds and important achievements that were achieved during the game. I then match up players to deeds/ideas/achievements. I then break up the bonus experience pot into fractions based on the amount of achievements there are- and I then distribute that experienc to players according to how many such achievements they were involved in.

For example, say there is 10000 experience banked after some hard adventuring. That means the bonus xp for the day is 5000 xp.

Now, let us say there were 3 good idea during the game, and one great achievement. There are four players, A, B, C and D, and they contributed as follows:

Good idea 1: A
Good idea 2: B
Good idea 3: C
Achievement: A and C

So we have there five seperate awards- A and C twice, and B once, and D not at all.

I therefore split that bonus 5000 xp into five- which, luckily enough is five lots of 1000 experience. A and C get two shares- 2000xp- each,. and B picks up the final 1000.

But waht about poor old D? Has he not been left behind? Far from it.

Bcause, you see, D is a Warrior. He already has LOADS of xp. He got it by hacking Orcs to pieces. Were it not for him, the xp pot.- and so the bonus ideas pool- would not have been so large in the first place. He is perfectly happy!

A and C are Animists. They were not able to get as much XP by fighting. But by having good ideas of what to do, being the cleverer types, and by saving the life of an important person- the achievement- they make up their XP in the idea pot!

B is a Ranger. He had a good idea, scoring a little idea xp, and he allo did some fighting, so he should even out the same as well.

Whilst, obviously, some players will end up doing better than others, the basic theory is that Warriors pick up all their xp in fights, whilst the more thoughtful, less violent types pick it up afterwards in the idea pool.

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Relative awards

Combat experience- whilst being awarded all the time (doing wounds, taking wounds, killing... it is very hard to NOT gain xp whilst fighting!) is awarded differently accroding to several factors:

You get more for fighting something of a higher level than you, and less for fighting something of a lowr level

You get more for fighting a foe without aid from anyone- 'aid' counts as there being anyone else nearby that your opponent has to even consider, whether that friend actually ends up helping you or not.

The first time you kill a 'type' of opponent (e.g. Weak Orc, Dunlending etc.) you get four times as much experience for it. The second and third times you kill one, you get double. The fourth time and onwards, you get the standard amount.

So, level 1 players, fighting opponents for the first time, none of which can be of lower level than them, tend to RACE up in experience very fast- which is fine, as that means more for the pot, and so more for everyone! But after a while, once you have killed a few things, the experience rush starts to level out.

Ushgarak
Updates

You will note the general and experience rules are now in.

The 'Experience Pot' will be created soon- once the skirmish at Baranar is done- and I will start to calculate what everyone is owed.

Plenty of opportunity for people to pick up LOADS of experience once the big fight at Baranar starts! We are looking to get the new players up to level 2 ASAP!

The veterans will be treated as if they have so far killed one each of Weak orc, Crebain and Dunlending, so you can get double for your first in-game kills of those but not quadruple.

Aiwendil is not counted as a Veteran but you may note she has received a 2500 xp bonus for being in the fight at the Barrow Downs. For the vets, that was all part of what started them at 20000 xp and level 2.

Note that in future level ups, you will be able to divert two points from ANY combat of categories to get an extra six stamina! This is something that should always have been there and if people want to change to get more stmaina now, please feel free- basically, I am VERY worried about the low stamina that some players are going to be having- this is a problem with the basic system, rather than your character design, however.

Also note that the Elven curved swords (used by Arwen) and two-handed short blades are now worked into the system- however, being Elven they are a minimum of +5 and hence unavilable to buy right now. Basically, the curved sword will act as a scimitar, and the two-bladed sword will be like a Bastard sword but with no penalty for use, making it a very neat weapon but rather expensive to get hold of. It certainly makes 'two-handed' an attractive skill for Elves.

Work is still slowly progressing on the Magic system- Herbology is definitely going in as a skill, whethger it will be a Magic skill or whether I weill just introduce the Secondary Skills system, I am not yet sure. Secondary skills are basically any other skill you want, less directly useful than the main skills but cheaper to get.

So far in the LOTR game- mainly due to time issues- I have not been 100% accurate in recording equipment and double checking figures and stuff., Right now, it is far more my concern that people understand how the system works rather than me being anal about the numbers. With any luck, people will hav the understanding, and I will have the time, to be more literal about the system come the big Baranar fight!

Feel free to ask questions...

Fire
Just read this entire thread through, no questions really except I'm wondering how much xp we will get

Mace Skywalker
are the rules the same for the new one as well?

Fire
yep(atleas I think so)

Mace Skywalker
Man, then i bet you guys are really strong now huh? Well, like i said ill try my best and see what happens, now I REALLY cant wait to start, even more so for RP.

Fire
lol we (a few of us) are lvl2 with a little luck *crosses fingers* we'll gain enough xp to reach lvl3 which aint that much. The fellowship now those guys are strong

Mace Skywalker
so compared to them we are like normal/ those guys are probbaly like lvl 10 huh! hopefully ill get to lvl. 2. you can level up by doing w\quite a lot of stuff i see.

Ushgarak
Whoa whoa whoa. Don't bring this up, there are new threads coming.

Fire
ok

Mace Skywalker
sorry. and did you get my character. i need to pick another weapon cuz im missing a stat.

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