Troll Lord Games

This is great stuff!

irda ranger wrote:
He said Clerics & Druids are innate spellcasters.

Yes, as "examples". But since innate casting is from the elves, I assumed there would be an arcane innate caster. So, clerics and druids are elves while wizards and illusionists are humans? No arcane love for elves?

Dristram wrote:
Yes, as "examples". But since innate casting is from the elves, I assumed there would be an arcane innate caster. So, clerics and druids are elves while wizards and illusionists are humans? No arcane love for elves?

Not necessarily. There is nothing which prevents the groups being "mixed". As examples, I also wrote that some humans tend to be "innate" spellcasters, like Lossoth, Beornings and Druedain, due to their close ties with nature and less "civilised" background. And all Men who follow the Shadow will almost certainly be clerics (of Sauron).

I simply outlined some "trends", but there is certainly space for learned elven spellcasters, in particular among the Noldor.

Cheers,

Antonio

It looks like my Middle-Earth campaign is finally coming togehter. I've been talking about some ideas and trying to get info over at DF. r72, among others, have been a great help so far.

rabindranath72, I'm not sure about the specifics so far regarding the campaign mechanics yet (other then it will clearly use C&C), but would you mind if I yank some of your ideas directly for use? I ask this because I will probably, eventually, make a campaign document that has all of the differing rules and whatnot. Some of these rules might be directly ripped off from this very thread?

..........................................Omote

FPQ
_________________
> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

Omote wrote:
It looks like my Middle-Earth campaign is finally coming togehter. I've been talking about some ideas and trying to get info over at DF. r72, among others, have been a great help so far.

rabindranath72, I'm not sure about the specifics so far regarding the campaign mechanics yet (other then it will clearly use C&C), but would you mind if I yank some of your ideas directly for use? I ask this because I will probably, eventually, make a campaign document that has all of the differing rules and whatnot. Some of these rules might be directly ripped off from this very thread?

..........................................Omote

FPQ

Hey Omote,

no problem!

But if you want, I can send you my unfinished manuscript; there are other things which I have not posted.

Let me know!

Cheers,

Antonio

Please feel free to send any material that you like regarding this project. The only place I would post anything regarding this would be on our personal message boards (although they are down right now), DF or right here. I will give all credit where it is due.

OMOTE076 at AOL dot COM

Thx sir.

.............................................Omote

FPQ
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> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

I'd love to get a copy of whatever you've got so far as well. Could you be troubled to send it to me at:

zomben at yahoo dot com

Thanks!

email sent to both!

I've always loved Middle earth & would love a copy if & when you get a chance.

I've got a lot of MERP stuff I've been digin through & thinking about converting. The problem is I've got a training trip soon, a test for MSgt coming & a little one on the way so not much time. If you all would like (& can wait for a couple of months) I'll post my stuff. It'll be mainly Riders of Rohim.

Again great stuff!
_________________
"And so I am become a knight of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows!" - Mark Twain

Forgive all spelling errors.

Knight Errant & Humble C&C Society Contributor
C&C Society

Lurker, please feel free to post all of your thought about the Rohirrim here or e-mail us. It seems like the C&C LOTR crowd will soon need it's own website!

............................................Omote

FPQ
_________________
> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

Lurker wrote:
I've always loved Middle earth & would love a copy if & when you get a chance.

I've got a lot of MERP stuff I've been digin through & thinking about converting. The problem is I've got a training trip soon, a test for MSgt coming & a little one on the way so not much time. If you all would like (& can wait for a couple of months) I'll post my stuff. It'll be mainly Riders of Rohim.

Again great stuff!

Sure, give me your email address!

Quote:
Lurker, please feel free to post all of your thought about the Rohirrim here or e-mail us. It seems like the C&C LOTR crowd will soon need it's own website!

............................................Omote

FPQ

Will do but it might be a while, My wife just reminded me I need to walk all the dogs as she is now in the waddle stage....

Quote:
Sure, give me your email address!

r72 thanks!!!!! & its rouelllr@hotmail.com
_________________
"And so I am become a knight of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows!" - Mark Twain

Forgive all spelling errors.

Knight Errant & Humble C&C Society Contributor
C&C Society

rabindranath72,

If you wouldn't mind indulging me on your thoughts behind "courage" in your ME writeup?

I've got the early stages of a workable corruption system floating around my head, but I'm interested in your thoughts on courage and how that would affect corruption. Feel free to post, PM or e-mail me at your leisure.

omote076 at aol dot com

............................................Omote

FPQ
_________________
> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

Omote wrote:
rabindranath72,

If you wouldn't mind indulging me on your thoughts behind "courage" in your ME writeup?

I've got the early stages of a workable corruption system floating around my head, but I'm interested in your thoughts on courage and how that would affect corruption. Feel free to post, PM or e-mail me at your leisure.

omote076 at aol dot com

............................................Omote

FPQ

Hi,

well, I intend Courage to be used as a sort of "action points". All characters would start with 3 Courage points, (humans have a bonus). Spending a Courage point gives +2 to a dice roll in situations in which it is dramatically appropriate. A player could use a Courage point after seeing the result of the roll.

Another use would be to be allowed to make a check even when it would not normally be allowed, for truly exceptional cases. Regaining (and awarding) Courage points is at the CK discretion (perhaps with an XP expenditure, e.g. 1000 XPs to increase the total by 1). Courage points are only possessed by PCs and special NPCs.

Corruption is intended to work as a "level", which increases every time the characters do something Evil. All characters start at 0 Corruption. The maximum they can accumulate is given by their Charisma score. When they reach this level, they are completely corrupt and become NPCs.

In general, to avoid gaining Corruption a Charisma check (with the current Corruption score as a CL, plus eventual modifiers) must be passed. No check is needed when a character learns a Sorcery spell; he automatically gains 1 Corruption point.

Casting a Sorcery spell forces a Charisma check (CL=Corruption + spell level). If it fails, 1 Corruption point is gained.

Corruption also modifies all checks related to social interaction. It makes more difficult having good reactions (the CL is increased by the Corruption level). But it makes easier intimidating others (the CL is decreased by the Corruption level). Losing Corruption requires acts of repentance, heroism and selflessness (at the CK discretion).

Well, that's all, more or less!

Cheers,

Antonio

Thx for your thoughts r72. The corruption system I'm thinking of works closely to how you have described.

I'm not sure how much I like "action points" in C&C, but I could see how they could make very difficult actions super heroic.

........................................Omote

FPQ
_________________
> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

rabindranath72 wrote:
well, I intend Courage to be used as a sort of "action points". All characters would start with 3 Courage points, (humans have a bonus). Spending a Courage point gives +2 to a dice roll in situations in which it is dramatically appropriate. A player could use a Courage point after seeing the result of the roll.

Another use would be to be allowed to make a check even when it would not normally be allowed, for truly exceptional cases. Regaining (and awarding) Courage points is at the CK discretion (perhaps with an XP expenditure, e.g. 1000 XPs to increase the total by 1). Courage points are only possessed by PCs and special NPCs.

Hmmm... I think a +2 bump isn't really all that interesting. Courage points should allow PCs to do really tremendously awesome things. Take a look at Jason Vey's "Fate Points" system, which might be a good solution: http://grey-elf.com/candc/fatepoints.pdf

rabindranath72 wrote:
Corruption is intended to work as a "level", which increases every time the characters do something Evil. All characters start at 0 Corruption. The maximum they can accumulate is given by their Charisma score. When they reach this level, they are completely corrupt and become NPCs.

You know, I don't see any reason to give an artificial level cap based on any stat; especially Charisma. As Frodo said "I think a servant of the Enemy would seem fair, yet feel foul."

How about this instead: When a PC does a 'Corrupt Action' (whatever you deem the Corrupt action to be) he immediatel gains another level of "Shadow" and he must make a Saving Throw of some sort (I'd posit WIS would be more appropriate than CHA... YMMV).

Now, the number he has to beat is the normal Challenge Base (12/18) with a modifier equal to the current level of Shadow he has accumulated. So, if he has 5 corruption points, and is rolling without a Prime stat, he'd need to get a total of 23. This should also be a simple roll of D20+Stat Modifier. No level bonuses, as clearly no Class in ME has the "Resist the Shadow" ability which would allow them to add their level to it. If even the Istari are not immune to the Shadow's pull, what hope do the rest have?

This system would work well, and pretty simply. It would also greatly penalize players who try to 'work the system' and do rotten things because they know they have a CHA of 18, and can murder 17 virgins in their sleep before they have to start repenting.

Thoughts?

zomben wrote:
You know, I don't see any reason to give an artificial level cap based on any stat; especially Charisma.......he must make a Saving Throw of some sort (I'd posit WIS would be more appropriate than CHA... YMMV).

Considering that Charisma also is a measure of one's personality and willpower I think it a pretty appropriate attribute check.

DangerDwarf wrote:
Considering that Charisma also is a measure of one's personality and willpower I think it a pretty appropriate attribute check.

Fair enough. Like I said, "YMMV".

Considering that +2 corresponds to having a very high ability score, I feel it is a fair enough bonus (remember that by default abilities do not increase).

Plus, Courage allows you to attempt actions that would be impossible (if dramatically appropriate).

Regarding Corruption, I think a cap is necessary for two reasons:

1) It becomes a sort of "clock" before the character is completely under the sway of the Shadow. And nothing scares a player more than knowing that he is running out of resources!

2) The cap is not necessarily a cap, since NPCs could have arbitrarily high Corruption (although I like to think that the capability of doing Evil should be matched by someone's will of doing it).

It must be a cap only for PCs, and it marks the boundary between playing the character and losing it.

My system allows precisely this kind of things "I think a servant of the Enemy would seem fair, yet feel foul." He could have a very high Charisma, yet the reactions to his actions would be penalised by his (possibly high) Corruption score. History is full of charismatic characters who were utterly corrupt (Hitler, e.g.)

Using wisdom is not a good idea IMO, since the power of the Shadow affects the will of people. Saruman was one of the Wise, yet he fell under the sway of the Shadow.

Also, I want some character classes, like Paladins, Knights and Bards, to be the hardest to fall to Shadow, since it is appropriate given their roles. For example, only Dunedain and Elves may be Paladins, their powers being a representation of their connections with the Powers and their Rigtheousness.

Perhaps I have not been clear in my explanation, but the Corruption is intended to work as a CL for charisma checks (not saving throws!) to resist gaining more Corruption.

And a character who attempts to "work the system" may simply find himself automatically an NPC. There is not cap on the number of Corruption points gained by doing an action!

Anyway, thanks for the feedback!

Cheers,

Antonio

I am also firmly in the camp of a Corruption Stat is directly attributable to the CL of a Charisma check. Regardless if Charisma is prime or not, the growing presence of the shadow in a person becomes painfully clear each time he has to make a check. This is especially true if the character has corruption.

But at what point is a PC corrupt?

You could argue that a failed save to avoid corruption means that the PC has become corrupt. This is tough as anybody with one bad roll with zero corruption could be bent towards the will of evil.

I think a flat number attained is a better mark of who is corrupt and who is yet to fall into shadow. What that number is could be a combination of stats, could be a flat number plus a stat modifier, etc. Charisma is a good gauge of this, so maybe this MAX CORRUPTION should be = to Charisma... maybe.

[/thinking while typing]

..................................................Omote

FPQ

I like the idea of corruption & linking it to charisma.

Before reading this thread I had been looking at some 3.e PDFs I had (before I got fully annoyed with 3.e & converted to the holy crusade) I believe it was Excalibur that had it. I could be wrong on the book. Taking oaths helped ie oath of poverty etc. Im not sure how that would work in a Middle Earth game though. I didnt like the fact that your alignment and back ground set your starting honor level.

The good guy in me wonders about how to recover from corruption & redeem ones self. I guess hashing out a good system first, before throwing in that wrench, would be a good idea.

Quote:
My system allows precisely this kind of things "I think a servant of the Enemy would seem fair, yet feel foul." He could have a very high Charisma, yet the reactions to his actions would be penalised by his (possibly high) Corruption score. History is full of charismatic characters who were utterly corrupt (Hitler, e.g.)

That is why Ive always liked having a beauty stat too. (just an idea I used in my old 1 & 2e games) Boy that countess is HOT, and look at how well she commands her house hold knights but she kind of gives me the willies.. I guess that be a bit sophomoric though.
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"And so I am become a knight of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows!" - Mark Twain

Forgive all spelling errors.

Knight Errant & Humble C&C Society Contributor
C&C Society

Your example is not that sophomoric by any means. However, even with a high charisma and a high corruption score there is going to be "hotness" with that certain "I just don't feel right about this person."

In order to avoid this "some thing about this person seems amiss," you could always make a WIS check versus the opponents corruption score (opponents corruption score = CL of WIS check).

.................................................Omote

FPQ
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> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

This creates a "corruption attack" if you will. You could have certain elements in the game force a save or gain one point of corruption. Certain items could force a save and do like 1d6 points of corruption (the One Ring for example). Certain big bad creatures (Witch King of Angmar), or exceptionally powerful foes (Saruman) could do the same.

Just some thoughts from a classic way of game thinking.

...........................................Omote

FPQ
_________________
> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

Omote wrote:
This creates a "corruption attack" if you will. You could have certain elements in the game force a save or gain one point of corruption. Certain items could force a save and do like 1d6 points of corruption (the One Ring for example). Certain big bad creatures (Witch King of Angmar), or exceptionally powerful foes (Saruman) could do the same.

Okay, I've got another idea on this.

Certain situations will make a Character have to take a Corruption Saving Throw, or suffer a point (or more!) of Shadow. Some things cause more Shadow points, for example. Maybe commiting wilful murder causes 1D3 points to be gained, if a PC fails the save. Etc.

The Corruption Save is a CHA-based save (seems to be the preferred choice around here), and the Challenge Level of the save is based on how forceful the influencing item/person is. The Ring is clearly a corrupting item. Grima Wormtongue also seems to have some subtle corrupting power. Etc.

Now, Shadow points start to tally up. I propose we offer no artificial stat-based cap at all on when a character is corrupt.

Rather, I think we do this: Every time a character gains a point of Shadow, he must roll against his current total Shadow Points on 1D10. If he rolls under the total, he has become Corrupt, and is taken out of the game, and now under GM control. If he rolls over, he is safe... for now...

The possibility of "Redemption" and losing all Corruption points should be available, but rare and hard to accomplish. In the LOTR trilogy, we see two main characters fall to the Shadow, and become redeemed: Boromir and Theoden. Boromir sacrificed himself to save the hobbits, and in so doing redeemed himself from the Shadow. Theoden had to have magical intervention from one of the Istari in order to drive away the Shadow over him.

Thoughts?

While this is not a bad idea, it kind of goes away from the "core" siege mechanic (in this particular aspect that is). Not saying that this is a bad idea, it's actually quite good. Much food for further thought.

.................................................Omote

FPQ
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> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

As Omote said, I would prefer working within the SIEGE mechanics.

You can do more or less the same as you say, by having the character beat a CHA check whose CL is the number of Corruption points he has. You will notice that this is the same mechanic I used to avoid gaining Corruption. By I do not understand why you would such a "none-or-all" system, with a stroke of bad luck a character could become an NPC even with 1 Corruption point; not very fun!

A viable way would be to "mix" my ideas with yours, that is when a character reaches his maximum Corruption (equal to his Charisma score), then afterward, he automatically gains a point of corruption, but if he fails, he becomes a definite servant of the Shadow. So, there is not an upper limit, but once you hit the boundary of your Charisma score, a failed is fatal.

Cheers,

Antonio

rabindranath72 wrote:
...that is when a character reaches his maximum Corruption (equal to his Charisma score), then afterward, he automatically gains a point of corruption, but if he fails, he becomes a definite servant of the Shadow. So, there is not an upper limit, but once you hit the boundary of your Charisma score, a failed is fatal.

Now THAT is a fine idea. Me likey.

..........................................Omote

FPQ
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> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

rabindranath72 wrote:
By I do not understand why you would such a "none-or-all" system, with a stroke of bad luck a character could become an NPC even with 1 Corruption point; not very fun!

SImply because I don't like a system for Middle-Earth in which it's okay to do 'some evil stuff' and the player has a concrete idea of when he's going to become evil. "Oh, hey, I'm almost at my CHA limit. Better stop eating babies and do some nice stuff for a while."

I'd rather see a system in which if a PC does even one evil act, he has a chance of falling to the Shadow and being removed from the game. Maybe your system does this and I'm just not understanding it (sorry, I've been doped up on cold medication for the past two weeks!)

The system I proposed was based on the Dark Side Points mechanic from the D6 edition of the Star Wars RPG. When you did rotten things, you began to accumulate Dark Side Points. The frightening thing was, if you did anything to warrant getting a DSP, you had a chance right then to slip to the Dark Side and become an NPC.

So, what it really did was encourage players to really think before 'embracing the Dark Path'. Even if you got your first DSP, you had a 1/6 chance of turning to the Dark Side right there.

Well, I think one could argue that commiting and evil act might not put yuou on the side of Sauron. Eating babies, for example, might be psychopathic but might not turn you to act for Sauron.

I know that's a weak arguement, but one just the same.

.............................................Omote

FPQ
_________________
> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

Omote wrote:
Well, I think one could argue that commiting and evil act might not put yuou on the side of Sauron. Eating babies, for example, might be psychopathic but might not turn you to act for Sauron.

I know that's a weak arguement, but one just the same.

You know, another thought... Do we even need a "Corruption" system? C&C uses Alignment, right? Why not just really make an emphasis that in a Middle-Earth game, Alignment is very important, and will be tracked. If you start commiting evil acts, you will slide further toward the Chaotic and Evil alignments.

I mean, when it comes down to it, I'm always a "KISS" sort of guy with house rules. Maybe the solution is already right there in the PHB...