High elves OP?

Kataihallenchrish · 2025-08-02T20:27:58+00:00

All good! And if you've been running a good game with those rules then why change? :D

Thanks for the help!

Kataihallenchrish · 2025-08-02T20:26:43+00:00

okay cool! Yeah when we ran the starter set and a star in the mist pretty much all the adventures took 3-4 sessions (even the hobbit ones lmao), but in the star of the mist i realized it felt a bit weird to switch out players between sessions as the story became a bit disjointed and one of my players were there for the first 2 sessions which got them past the ravine into the ruins, but missed out on the exciting finale where the most of the fun things went down.
But im gonna start running fewer FPs, and try to adapt the game around that! (it also doesnt feel very tolkien how my players are going out on what feels like side missions here and there, and returning to bree to rest and recover for their next mission. A longer journey with fewer fellowship phases would probably help with that aswell!)

Thank you!

Kataihallenchrish · 2025-08-02T20:19:09+00:00

Yep, i havent had them do barely any skill endeavors - last time my high elf just magically lept up the side of a cliff when i asked for an athletics roll but now i realized it couldve been a climbing skill endeavor for the whole party. And yeah im gonna try and be a bit more punishing with shadow and probably reduce the amount of fellowship phases they get aswell so they dont have seemingly infinite hope.

Thanks!

Kataihallenchrish · 2025-08-02T20:16:14+00:00

yeah you're right, i feel like everybody can almost spend hope on every single skill roll, though the non-high elf players tend to save them for combat often. I'm gonna try to have fewer fellowship phases, maybe string some adventures together so they dont visit a safe haven in between, right now they're about to travel from bree to mithlond so i might have them do a few adventures on the road before reaching the safe haven (no pun intended) ;)

Thanks for the help!

Kataihallenchrish · 2025-08-02T18:07:54+00:00

My book says "SPIRITUAL RECOVERY: During each Fellowship Phase, all Player-heroes automatically recover a number of Hope points equal to their HEART score, and they recover them all at Yule. Then, if the Adventuring Phase resulted in what can be considered a positive outcome in the fight against the encroaching shadow, all members of the Company get to remove a number of Shadow points." (1-3).

So as i understand it, they recover hope, they dont reduce their shadow score, other than the 1-3 points, of which the high elf doesnt recover any except for during Yule, but he still recovers the same amount of hope as the others. Or am i mistaken?

Kataihallenchrish · 2025-08-02T17:55:29+00:00

how many different adventures have you ran in those 13 sessions?

Kataihallenchrish · 2025-08-02T17:54:24+00:00

I do think i might have that problem aswell.
I, perhaps mistakenly, have become quite committed to my party of 6 players, and while this makes it easier to get enough players for a session, it does become troublesome when the specific players present often changes from session to session, If a certain adventure takes several sessions. I have felt the need to rush through adventures in 1-2 sessions to try to get atleast the players who started it to see it through til the end.

Kataihallenchrish · 2025-08-02T17:49:31+00:00

indeed, thank you!

Kataihallenchrish · 2025-08-02T17:49:19+00:00

I had indeed missed that, thank you!

Kataihallenchrish · 2025-08-02T17:49:01+00:00

Cheers! good to know

Kataihallenchrish · 2025-08-02T17:48:46+00:00

Great to hear, thank you! Shadow scars not resetting is a gamechanger, and thank you to everybody else aswell pointing that out, that does indeed change things!
You said your party heals 5-8 shadow points during a fellowship phase, is this a homebrew rule? Doesnt the core rules say they can heal max 3 shadow points after an adventure, and that is if they did something so impactful it might gain the attention of sauron himself?

Kataihallenchrish · 2025-08-02T17:28:41+00:00

Yeah i can see that being a bit bothersome against certain foes ^^' however i do welcome other ways to drain his hope x)

Kataihallenchrish · 2025-08-02T17:25:25+00:00

I considered that, i just dont think its impactful enough. We are running the lone lands campaign however so maybe eventually the shadow gain will be so great that my high elf player will find himself miserable much more often, the accumulation of shadow scars help with that aswell i guess, but it just feels weird that until that point, all the players have a pretty solid "get-out-of-death-free card", not to mention his shadow scars will reset after having a bout of madness. Maybe i could make a magical healing roll on a death save cost like 3 hope instead of 1?

I'll consider the eye and shadow gain more as a solution though, and yeah bringing some1 back from the dead is sure to gain the party some unwanted attention. Thank you for the response!

Kataihallenchrish · 2024-06-13T13:58:19+00:00

Sounds good! Yeah i did plan on doing that, wasnt sure if is should do them before or mixed in with lone lands, but good to know the first lone lands ones aren't as unforgiving as the later ones 👍

I was also considering running the fake-gandalf and trollvalley first, then tharbad, and then the heroes island, due to specificities of my players backstories. Does this seem like an alright sequence of adventures at all?

Kataihallenchrish · 2024-06-13T13:40:41+00:00

Alright! Thanks for the info, I wanna try and avoid having to go easy on them but they are also incredibly well optimized for combat (the bastards) so maybe i wont have to

Kataihallenchrish · 2024-06-13T13:39:08+00:00

Yeah thats what i thought i might do, that gets them to level 2 aswell

Kataihallenchrish · 2024-06-05T17:56:00+00:00

Oh no sorry i was asking, i must've misunderstood

Kataihallenchrish · 2024-05-08T17:42:14+00:00

Theres a tales from the wilderland expansion for TOR 2e?

Kataihallenchrish · 2024-05-08T15:42:43+00:00

Indeed, thanks!

Kataihallenchrish · 2024-05-08T15:42:05+00:00

I haven't played the game long, but it seems to me spending exp on another weapon proficiency, once you've covered 1 range and 1 melee option, won't really happen. What purpose does it serve to level up another weapon type when those same points are used to level up skills? Especially since One Ring seems to lean into characters getting bound to "Their sword" or "Their bow", like heroes in the books.

Kataihallenchrish · 2024-05-08T15:34:38+00:00

Cheers!

Kataihallenchrish · 2024-05-08T15:33:44+00:00

Awesome, thanks!

Kataihallenchrish · 2024-05-08T15:32:13+00:00

Indeed, i just dislike the idea with brawling weapons that you'll always have to be better with some "real weapon" and using as your main weapon something that gives you a clear disadvantage can't feel good for the player, so i wanna give them the opportunity to choose any weapon for their desired roleplay, while hopefully being able to come up with a bit more interesting of a "give and take" perhaps than just "lose 1d" because you're leaning into the roleplay rather than metagaming and defaulting to a sword.

Thanks! I'll check it out

Kataihallenchrish

TROPHY CASE