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HunterGreen
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Re: Downsides of "... favoured by the Grey Wizard" in "Character Lifepaths"

Fri 03 Mar 2023, 20:28

Moreover, there is a background reason: the core rules were written before the misprinted dice came out, and we completed the Lifepaths document after they were delivered, so there was no way to predict that we would have to write the summary rule on page 51 of the Corebook so as to exclude any result higher than 10 from the Feat die results generating a Piercing Blow!
So if you roll an 11 on your Favoured by the Grey Wizard enhanced die, and you also got some Tengwar and would like to consider spending them on Pierce, what should that 11 be considered as when you're doing the math to see if that gets you up high enough for a piercing blow? I'm assuming you mean here that it counts as a 1 -- i.e., "I rolled a normal die, it came up 1, for other kinds of rolls I could count that as 11 but not for this" -- which means that 11 makes it exceedingly unlikely you could ever spend enough Tengwar to get a piercing blow. Is that right?
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Michele
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Re: Downsides of "... favoured by the Grey Wizard" in "Character Lifepaths"

Sat 04 Mar 2023, 13:45

So if you roll an 11 on your Favoured by the Grey Wizard enhanced die, and you also got some Tengwar and would like to consider spending them on Pierce, what should that 11 be considered as when you're doing the math to see if that gets you up high enough for a piercing blow? I'm assuming you mean here that it counts as a 1 -- i.e., "I rolled a normal die, it came up 1, for other kinds of rolls I could count that as 11 but not for this" -- which means that 11 makes it exceedingly unlikely you could ever spend enough Tengwar to get a piercing blow. Is that right?

No, the 11 is simply considered an 11, so spending Tengwars to Pierce will do nothing (since you already "missed the train" of scoring a 10, and you cannot somehow "bump" the 11 back to 10).
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Harlath
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Re: Downsides of "... favoured by the Grey Wizard" in "Character Lifepaths"

Sat 04 Mar 2023, 14:29

My concern with this ruling is that it put us in an odd place mathematically where an 11 doesn’t count for an 8+ or 9+ with Superior Keen weapons.

Appreciate that keen is written as 9, 10 or G in its full text (rather than the 9+ abbreviated version earlier in the book), but superior Keen only uses 8+ and 9+ language.

Admittedly a minor thing, as not many characters will have Favoured by the Grey Wizard and superior keen.

I suppose there would also be the oddity of a character with favoured by the grey wizard and using pierce to bump a feat die from an 8 or 9 to an 11 (if using a spear or bow) - this should produce a piercing blow but wouldn’t if 11s aren’t counting?

I think making the 11 count for piercing blows causes fewer knock on issues and weird edges cases, but I may well have overlooked something.

It does make it stronger admittedly.

I have potentially spent too much energy on a niche but interesting issue…
 
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HunterGreen
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Re: Downsides of "... favoured by the Grey Wizard" in "Character Lifepaths"

Sat 04 Mar 2023, 15:53

No, the 11 is simply considered an 11, so spending Tengwars to Pierce will do nothing (since you already "missed the train" of scoring a 10, and you cannot somehow "bump" the 11 back to 10).
That's definitely a downside and an asymmetry: no other roll entirely precludes the chance of spending enough Tengwars on Pierce (if the weapon allows, anyway) to get it up to 10, so this is a totally unique situation in the rules, if this is really the ruling.
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Doktor
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Re: Downsides of "... favoured by the Grey Wizard" in "Character Lifepaths"

Sat 04 Mar 2023, 17:02

But it would make favoured by gandalf way too powerful for just the inconveniance of +2 eye awareness unless you hindered the 11 with additional eye awareness like for magic?
 
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Michele
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Re: Downsides of "... favoured by the Grey Wizard" in "Character Lifepaths"

Sat 04 Mar 2023, 20:06

That's definitely a downside and an asymmetry: no other roll entirely precludes the chance of spending enough Tengwars on Pierce (if the weapon allows, anyway) to get it up to 10, so this is a totally unique situation in the rules, if this is really the ruling.

It doesn't preclude it, it's simply of no use. Also, you're only losing the chance of scoring a Piercing Blow when you both roll a 1 on the Feat die and at least 3 Tengwars: a pretty rare occurrence, I'd say!
It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.
 
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HunterGreen
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Re: Downsides of "... favoured by the Grey Wizard" in "Character Lifepaths"

Sun 05 Mar 2023, 04:41

It doesn't preclude it, it's simply of no use. Also, you're only losing the chance of scoring a Piercing Blow when you both roll a 1 on the Feat die and at least 3 Tengwars: a pretty rare occurrence, I'd say!
Perhaps very rare, but I don't see why we should have one rule for 11s for the Favored that says that they can't benefit from that rare circumstance, when everyone else uses a different rule that says they can. But mostly the asymmetry bugs me because I have to code a totally different thing in Narvi that ensures that the Favoured rolling 11s are the exception and can't use the functionality already present for everyone else all the rest of the time to spend their tengwars on Pierce. It effectively doubles the complexity of the code for handling the Pierce spend option. Sigh. Well, I guess I better throw some coding time at that.
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HunterGreen
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Re: Downsides of "... favoured by the Grey Wizard" in "Character Lifepaths"

Sun 05 Mar 2023, 19:42

Narvi is now able to support all of these variations on how Favoured by the Grey Wizard interacts with piercing blows:

  • By default, it follows Michele's ruling above. 11 works like Eye: you cannot spend tengwar on Pierce, and can never get a piercing blow. Favoured by the Grey Wizard is thus a tiny disadvantage, reducing your chances of getting a piercing blow, compared to others who are not so favoured.
  • In eleven-can-pierce mode, 11 is treated like the 1 that it effectively was. With a lot of tengwar you can still get a piercing blow. Those Favoured by the Grey Wizard work exactly the same as everyone else, and have no advantage nor disadvantage when it comes to getting piercing blows.
    \game config eleven-can-pierce
  • In eleven-pierces mode, 11 is treated as 11, so you already have a piercing blow. Favoured by the Grey Wizard significantly increases your rate of piercing blows (by up to 50%!).
    \game config eleven-pierces

Only the loremaster can set that configuration, and it is set on a per-game basis. It can be changed at any time.
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Michele
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Re: Downsides of "... favoured by the Grey Wizard" in "Character Lifepaths"

Mon 06 Mar 2023, 12:22

Thank you for your efforts in updating the excellent tool that is Narvi, HunterGreen! A truly great addition for the community, able to take into account even the most minute whims of developers! :)

By default, it follows Michele's ruling above. 11 works like Eye: you cannot spend tengwar on Pierce, and can never get a piercing blow. Favoured by the Grey Wizard is thus a tiny disadvantage, reducing your chances of getting a piercing blow, compared to others who are not so favoured.
In eleven-can-pierce mode, 11 is treated like the 1 that it effectively was. With a lot of tengwar you can still get a piercing blow. Those Favoured by the Grey Wizard work exactly the same as everyone else, and have no advantage nor disadvantage when it comes to getting piercing blows.

The "by default" is the rule as intended. To give you an idea of what "a tiny disadvantage" means, the chance of rolling both a 1 on the Feat Die and at least 3 Tengwars on the Success dice are 0.52 % (i.e. 1 in 200) when rolling 6 dice on the attack roll (and we're only talking about Player-heroes using spears: with bows and swords, you'd need at least 4 Tengwars!), so definitely a disadvantage I wouldn't worry about! For the same reason, the only difference between the "eleven-can-pierce mode" and the "by default" mode is that 0.52 %, a really negligible difference.

In eleven-pierces mode, 11 is treated as 11, so you already have a piercing blow. Favoured by the Grey Wizard significantly increases your rate of piercing blows (by up to 50%!).

That's exactly why we can't allow the 11 to score a Piercing Blow. Favoured by the Grey Wizard already gives you an average +0.83 on every roll you make (to make a comparison, it's almost like taking Prowess 3 times, once for each Attribute TN!), so it would be too unbalanced if it also increased your chance of scoring a Piercing Blow.
It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.
 
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HunterGreen
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Re: Downsides of "... favoured by the Grey Wizard" in "Character Lifepaths"

Mon 06 Mar 2023, 15:03

Yes, I absolutely see the 11 should not already be a piercing blow, but I and others remain unconvinced that the 11 should not just be treated like 1 and thus work the same as it does for everyone else, still allowing a piercing blow in that very rare case. But thankfully I found a way to make Narvi able to support both the official ruling, and this other interpretation that makes a lot more sense to me and others, the "treat the 11 like a 1 for the purposes of piercing blows" option where Favoured by the Grey Wizard is neither a benefit nor a hindrance to the player.
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