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Greetings folks:-)

I am about to run my first TOR 2nd edition adventure. Just finished reading the rules, some STRIDER-mode rules and are now planning a short campaign using "The Star of the Mist" as my starting adventure. I got some questions concerning the rules and I might add more as they pop up. Hope that's okey.

1: I'm making a "Nameless Thing" as a later campaign mini-boss. The Thing got ENDURANCE 80 and therefor 2 MIGHT according to table 6 on page 236.
So if my player-heores get lucky they can 2-shot the Thing since it got 2 MIGHT (and therefor 2 WOUNDS) by getting two Piercing Blows where the Thing fails the Protection rolls?

2: The Thing got " HIDEOUS TOUGHNESS" according the RAW p. 232. Do that mean it can do a "save" by making a Protection roll successfully and return to 80 Endurance again?
I kindda need my boss to survive more than two lucky Piercing Wounds. Am I missing something in the rules?

1. Yes, that's how it works. It'll happen at times, but not very often (starter characters normally only get Piercing Blows in 1-2 times out of 12 attacks. The enemy then has to fail both Protection Tests to be killed - it could happen during the fight, but it's very unlikely to all come together in the first two attacks). As a note (from having discussed this a few times), even with a Wound, it still gets 2 attacks. Might 2 means two attacks and that it can tank two hits, it doesn't go down to Might 1 after the first Wound.

2. Yes. They knock it down to 0, it does a Protection Test. If it fails, it dies. If it succeeds, it returns to half Endurance. To do this though, they'd have had to have reduced it to 0 End - which is ten or more hits, or two or three rounds. Even so, it might survive and get it back up to 40 Endurance.

I wouldn't worry too much about lucky shots. It's part of the game, and the Adversaries can do it to PHs too. Fighting is meant to be brutal and dangerous, which goes both ways. It's very unlikely they'll get so lucky to get two lucky shots in before you get a turn. It's about 40% chance that they'll get 1 and about 15% they'll get two. But on top of that, it'd need to fail both Protection Tests. That depends on their weapons and its armour rating, but it's pretty unlikely that it would then fail both tests.

Thank you for a well written answer - very helpfull!

And I guess that I can use HATE to boost the protection rolls if needed (CORE p. 143).
The Thing is (no pun intended ) I need to make sure the THING is a alive for key parts for the adventure - I'll make a special rule for them parts.

You're welcome, I'm glad it helps! And yes, you can spend Hate on Protection Tests. Feel free to describe the creature as not necessarily dying due to the fight but just being driven off (for examples of this, there is the Watcher in the Water and also Shelob that are both defeated or at least fended off, but not explicitly killed). It could be that when (if) they get that second Wound, that what happens is that the creature retreats into some hole to escape the Company.

The Thing is (no pun intended ) I need to make sure the THING is a alive for key parts for the adventure - I'll make a special rule for them parts.

If you're not willing to let the thing die, then there's no point running a combat scene with it in. Check out this article for alternative ways to think about the villain of your campaign: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/36 ... g-villainy

.... The Thing is (no pun intended ) I need to make sure the THING is a alive for key parts for the adventure - I'll make a special rule for them parts.

In the older version of TOR there was a major villain - the Werewolf of Mirkwood. Essentially if it was defeated in a combat its spirit/essence moved on to reinhabit another wolf body and then come back again (I'd say more but that would need Spoilers!) .

This idea might get you what you want. You could even limit the number of resurrections if you actually wanted it finally dead.

Just from experience... Is the Misty Star suitable for starting adventurers or is it better them to have something else before that? Nothing wrong in dangerous encounters, but maybe not wanting to kill everyone in the first adventure... It can happen so no worry, but have not yet run anything else than The Conspirasy most cracked and other starter scenarios to characters that are actually better than what normal starting characters are, so any advice how hard the adventure in the rule book actually is. aka how hard is hard...

It's not necessarily deadly...but it's designed to show off the mechanics rather than being a good starter adventure. The result it is that it's very Shadow-heavy (I freaked when I worked it out, thinking it was typical) and a gruelling experience (for the Player-Heroes, it can be fun for players!).

Personally, I'd recommend waiting for more experienced PHs to play it so they have a chance of mitigating the Shadow-gains, you can really dig into exploring the ruins without overwhelming them and so forth. If you're aggressively managing their Shadow, then maybe it could be a good idea to do this early so they have the Shadow points that then gets chipped away via Spiritual Recovery...but otherwise, I'd leave it til later. I think it would be more fun regardless.

If you have the other books, there are better starter adventures there? If you let us know what ones you have, we could make some suggestions.

I own them all... Ofcourse
Just looking something suitable for first adventure!
And because this is in core book, I was expecting it to be it... But it seemed somewhat deadly for the first adventure, so I did ask. I have only run the Shire addventure to the players to get used to rules and jump in difficulty seemed to be rather high...

The Shire adventures are alright, I found the pregen characters too under optimised for them (I think one of the early tasks is quite unlikely to succeed, if I remember rightly). If you make your own characters, they can be quite nice though.

Personally, I really liked The Old Dwarf-Mines and Tindailin from Ruins. The former is a monster romp, you can control difficulty via Hate spends. The latter is more lore-focused, but also has a good combat episode.

Ruins has a lot of great Landmarks to play, but those two good ones to start off with. The others play even better once people have found their feet (Shrouded Islets particularly!). Alternatively, Kings of Little Kingdoms from Tales is also a good adventure for starting off.