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That’s not entirely true. There may only be a limited amount of gameplay experience so far, but some of us folks have already made use of the alpha rules for testing. That’s in no way enough experience to have a definitive feel for the game, but it’s also not nothing.

Point well made, I stand corrected.

With regard to your original response, the maths presented accounts for using hope to gain extra dice, as the maths is the same. Favoured is something I didn’t throw in, but off the top of my head you can just add 8% to each of those percentages if the roll is favoured. Advancement and any culture specific virtues aren’t really relevant to this since I was talking specifically about new characters. There are mitigations, but the variance in achievability of skills for a new character is probably the most drastic I have ever come across in a RPG. Not being able to use half your skills is no fun in my opinion.

Succeeding with skill rolls was very hard for beginning characters in 1st edition too.

In fact, for normal TN 14 tests, you had to have at least 2 ranks in a skill to have a non trivial chance of succeeding (barring Hope use, of course).

My players' first priority was always to get to Travel 2, or even better 3 because Travel was so fundamental to Journey rolls in 1st edition (thanks to the Vala for THAT change!).

Considering there seems to be many ways to alleviate this, I fail to see how it's worse than in 1st edition.

The high variance between the skills also is more heavily sorted by Attribute group as well, since that determines the base TN for all rolls within that skill group.

For example, I used to really enjoy that a Rohirrim storyteller could have excellent Athletics for riding, but also great Riddle or Lore and Travel, and all of those abilities would be well sorted and only differentiated when it came to using Hope. Now to achieve the same level of balance, those skills will have to be invested in drastically differently - with their most pips invested in their weakest overall Attribute group - in order to be well-rounded.

I’m not a min/max play style fan, but it seems like players would have to actively choose their skill clusters poorly if they were to desire a more “balanced” build. If that’s a flawed conclusion, please correct me.

With regard to your original response, the maths presented accounts for using hope to gain extra dice, as the maths is the same. Favoured is something I didn’t throw in, but off the top of my head you can just add 8% to each of those percentages if the roll is favoured. Advancement and any culture specific virtues aren’t really relevant to this since I was talking specifically about new characters. There are mitigations, but the variance in achievability of skills for a new character is probably the most drastic I have ever come across in a RPG. Not being able to use half your skills is no fun in my opinion.

Succeeding with skill rolls was very hard for beginning characters in 1st edition too.

In fact, for normal TN 14 tests, you had to have at least 2 ranks in a skill to have a non trivial chance of succeeding (barring Hope use, of course).

My players' first priority was always to get to Travel 2, or even better 3 because Travel was so fundamental to Journey rolls in 1st edition (thanks to the Vala for THAT change!).

Considering there seems to be many ways to alleviate this, I fail to see how it's worse than in 1st edition.

I do want to clarify that I have every intention on giving this new set of rules a fair roll of the dice (forgive the pun), and that I’m just voicing initial concerns.

That said, my concern is more based around this doubling down effect, rather than purely on the difficulty itself. The rules basically tell you that if you have a low attribute in something, and low skill, you are both less capable at doing the thing and the thing itself is harder for you to do. The difficulty of the task is actively increased because of your lack of ability. This also feels compounded a little by the fact that Strength for example doesn’t just cover combat ability, but also your ability to see things, make things, and sing about them. That’s a broad range of skills that you need to invest in to counteract the constantly high TN.

I don’t like a game to tell me that my character really shouldn’t bother with certain checks. This seems to come pretty close to having that effect.

I don’t like a game to tell me that my character really shouldn’t bother with certain checks. This seems to come pretty close to having that effect.

Believe me, I completely get that. As I said, we felt the same way in 1st edition. Getting the first APs/XPs to raise your Travel and main combat skills to 3 was not a fun process, because it feels as if you're just working to be able to have a shot at surviving. Reminds me of AD&D wizards, where you were SO vulnerable for the first few levels and then got SO MUCH MORE powerful than all other PCs at higher levels.

Unfortunately, I feel it will be the same way in 2nd edition.

This problem, combined with the Heir problem (player who gets a new character, even with the new Creating/Raising an Heir rules, will be behind the others in power; some of my players don't like that at all...), has made me think of a solution:

Insetad of having a Company where all PCs are beginners, have players with different experience levels.

The more powerful PCs will have of course a bigger mechanical impact, but they will have to be replaced sooner.

It's a little like having three tiers of PCs at the beginning, Tier-1 being the more experienced and Tier-3 being beginners.

When it comes time for Tier-1 to retire, Tier-2 will be ready to replace them as the new Tier-1; same with Tier-2 replaced with Tier-3; and the new characters (the heirs of ex Tier-1 PCs) will be the new Tier-3.

This has the advantage of always having some characters able to succeed key skill rolls AND not having every PC retire around the same time.

I think it also emulates the Fellowship of the Ring structure, where über powerful characters (Aragorn, Gandalf) worked with beginners (the Hobbits). By the time the Hobbits were left to their own device, they had enough experience to survive and even succeed.

Just wondering what you would have to subtract Attribute level from to get similar probabilities to 1e? Maybe 16 instead of 20?

Attributes can go up with experience, thus lowering the corresponding TN.

Please could you point me to this in the rules? I’ve just gone back over the fellowship phase but didn’t see it- I may have missed it. I can only see advancement for skills, combat, wisdom and valour.

Many thanks

I didn't write it the right way, I should have written "TN of Attributes may go down".

I was refering to the Prowess Virtue (page 80), and I went from memory.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

I didn't write it the right way, I should have written "TN of Attributes may go down".

I was refering to the Prowess Virtue (page 80), and I went from memory.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Ah, that's a shame, but no worries. Thanks anyway

In any case, as far as I understand it, singing is a bit more difficult for a Hobbit than for a dwarf in 2nd ed.
It sounds a bit strange to my ears, if I think about the success of Frodo singing at the Prancing Pony, and many other episodes.
Being a merry folk is a clear advantage, however, I'm not sure if it is enough to compensate for the higher TN.
What do you think about it?

Hobbits start with 2 levels in song and Dwarves only 1, so median-strength Hobbits still come out better than median-strength Dwarves at singing according to my math (21% vs 17%):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19dx3QN ... sp=sharing

Includes the auto-success from Gandalf rune.