Forum

A Magical Success (especially via Skill of the Eldar) is "you did unbelievingly better than anyone else could do in such circumstances".

And getting to do that 1/12 times you roll could be a lot of fun. Maybe not an optimizer’s first choice of virtues, but narratively quite rich.

Yeah it really captures the Elves are awesome vibe without breaking the game.

Moving away from the FAQ thread for discussion:

In the FAQ for Rivendell, you clarified that Skill of the Eldar should read "when a Gandalf is rolled on the Feat die". Does this not make the virtue completely useless, as according to page 17 of the Official Rulebook rolling a Gandalf means the action succeeds regardless of the total?

Hello Antaean! This thread has some good comments on Skill of the Eldar, including from one of the authors.

p21 of the Rulebook noting that Magical Successes are beyond normal successes, the table on p19 and Jacob's advice here to think of the magical success as an extra Success icon at a minimum hopefully sparks some ideas. It can help add 6s to a Skill Endeavour, or maybe it generates extra information, lets you affect more people, complete the task more quickly etc. All various things the rules suggest.

That's great - thanks for digging this up. The comment to consider it as an additional Tengwar would be good if this was made official (not sure if Jacob's comment makes it official or not? - sorry, not yet familiar with Dev names and pretty new to ToR).

For me, how it is written right now there is zero benefit to selecting it - particularly with so many virtues already available to the High Elves (not complaining!). My view on it as written is based on how the game is played - if you need a magical success to do something you spend the hope before the roll. If you don't need a magical success and roll a gandalf then you succeed. With this ability as it is written right now, all it's doing is putting some extra narrative fluff around how you succeed. That's great and very thematic, but the gandalf by itself could do the narrative fluff piece.

Jacob is the lead writer (alongside Francesco Nepitello, the lead designer of The One Ring) on the Rivendell pamphlet.

I've asked about a general "rule of thumb" for magical successes in the FAQ/Errata as it is clearly an issue lots of people struggle with. This has been a hot topic here, Facebook and on the discord channel!

According to the rulebook: "a Magical success is an outcome that can hardly be mistaken for an ordinary success — in other words, the Player-hero has achieved something so unusual that it could not be accomplished without a supernatural aid." Much as an ordinary success and a great/extraordinary success are different, so too is a Magical Success superior mechanically.

The "Extra success" icon is a good rule of thumb, but as Jacob notes it is important to also allow magical successes to do things a standard success couldn't.

Lots of the below comes down to reviewing what the Skill roll was trying to achieve narratively, and transforming a Magical Success in to a meaningful mechanical impact.

- If our PCs are climbing an old ruing wall as part of a Skill Endeavour, the Magical Success is at least another 6 on the attempt, maybe more. Perhaps I wasn't going to spend a hope of Hope on this, as I was saving them for later, but great to get a magical success naturally.
- Or if I'm trying to Awe some foes in to not taking part in a confrontation (whether a subsequent combat where they'd be extra foes or social rolls where large numbers or the "Numerous" Distinctive feature would impose -1d), the Magical Success lets me "Widen Influence" (p19) and affect more NPCs, making the subsequent scene easier. I might not have spent Hope on that, needing it for something else, but the Narrative from a Magical Success turns in to a tangible mechanical benefit.
- I'm in a combat, and I try an action that would normally take up my main action but roll a Gandalf symbol for a Magical Success, and can now "make haste" (p19) so the Loremaster lets it only count as a Secondary Action.
- You're making Travel rolls at the end of a Journey. Perhaps I wouldn't spend Hope to turn this in to an auto success, but treating it as an extra 6 lets me take off another point of fatigue or turn a companion's failure in to a success etc.

The above is largely just working off p19, without considering special things that only a Magical Success could achieve.

Awesome - thanks for the reply and clarification on who Jacob is!

I agree with you that Magical successes should allow things to be done that are otherwise not possible. I think the issue I have lies in how the High Elf ability works. The rules as they are written have the mechanic where hope is spent for a magical success before the roll, so you know before you roll that you will get a magical success. The High Elf ability kinda turns that on its head by making it part of a standard roll.

Your suggestions/examples below are all excellent and something like you suggest such as a general "rule of thumb" for magical successes in the FAQ/Errata - particularly mechanical benefits such as the examples you highlight and clarifying counting the Gandalf as a Tengwar - would go a long way to making this High Elf specific ability more useful.

Glad to have helped!

Agreed, I think Jacob's advice on "treat it as an extra 6 at a minimum, while remembering magic unlocks special things" is clearly helpful to a lot of players based on the questions.

Its sitting in the FAQ thread, so I'm hoping it gets formalised there. Can see it being a tough one, as formalising Tolkien magic isn't quite right, but 6s offer a broad range of options and I think Jacob's rule of thumb works well. It's actually how Skill of the Eldar worked in 1e: you counted the Gandalf symbol as an extra Success symbol.

Does this virtue really work on every feat die ever rolled? Even in combat, on protection rolls etc.? Because in the description it only mentions feat die, without any restrictions.

Does this virtue really work on every feat die ever rolled? Even in combat, on protection rolls etc.? Because in the description it only mentions feat die, without any restrictions.

Just Skill rolls, as it is "When you roll a [Gandalf] on the Feat die, your result counts as a Magical success without needing to spend Hope," so it is filling in the roll of your Cultural Blessing, Elven Wise, which only works on Skill rolls.

Magical Successes only apply to Skill rolls, from everything we've seen so far. A [Gandalf] on a Feat die is still an auto success, but this Virtue won't upgrade it to a magical success.

Just Skill rolls. Understood.
Thanks.