I'm wondering about a radical change for the By the Book project (intro link: http://www.one-ring.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=17568 )

We've always considered S3 to be the default, but the Uruk Hai as GW did them is really the model for how much better Men were than Orcs (without the bad hygiene). The Half-Orcs were as large as Men, and Uruk Hai came close as well, but all the others were much smaller.

Making this change would give a little more room for differentiation between the low end. At this point we only have S2 for Goblins and Hobbits, and everyone else is on par. Uruk Hai would have been downgraded to S3, which means everyone is stuck at the same level.

Note this leaves Sylvan Elves at S3, which means maybe their Fight can be boosted a bit, but still give them that guerilla flavour.

Any thoughts on this? It could mean every Man from Far Harad to Arnor gets S4...or maybe it should be limited to the Men of the West (Numenorians, Gondor, Arnor, Rohan).

I voted others for Uruks, Half-Trolls and elite units of Men.

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OFTENTIME,THE SHADOWS SERVE NOT ONLY TO CONCEAL THOSE WHO WISH TO DO EVIL,BUT ALSO PROTECT THOSE WHO SEEK TO DO GOOD

Are High Men basically Numenoreans? And what are the Half-orcs?

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

LOL, I voted for "other" as well. Too many options for a poll! But now I'm thinking All Men, Half Orcs, Uruks and Noldor. High Men would simply have better Fight (and special rules).

Details of High Men are in the intro post (link above), but basically they are Numenorians, Gondor (Minas Tirith and Dol Amroth, but not fiefdoms), Arnor, Dunedain and Rangers of the North, but not Ranger troops.

Half-orcs are the crossing of Men and Orcs by Saruman. The Uruk hai were just really big Orcs.

Ok, I'm voting for High Men, Noldor, and Uruk-hai.

Actually, how about Dwarves?

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

yeah i wondered about that to

may be deep inside you feel this is the right choice
JK

may be it's possible for you to remove the poll and enter it again for clearer result, with just couple of votes we can submit it again I guess.

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OFTENTIME,THE SHADOWS SERVE NOT ONLY TO CONCEAL THOSE WHO WISH TO DO EVIL,BUT ALSO PROTECT THOSE WHO SEEK TO DO GOOD

I know everybody loves their tough Dwarves, but if Men are S4, Dwarves are S3 for sure. Gimli made a point at Helm's Deep that the Men looked too big for him to handle, but the Orcs (including Uruks) were not. If Men are S3, by rights Dwarves and Orcs should be S2 and Hobbits and Goblins S1...but the way the power structure of the rules are it's really hard to justify all but the weakest (such as Hobbits and Goblins) going below S3, which makes for very little differentiation.

Dwarves do start at D4 however (rather than D3), and I had a special rule in mind for them:

Stubborn: a Dwarf is not pushed back even if he loses a fight, unless he is outnumbered or his opponent is S6 or higher. He can still be trapped, however. I haven't worked out the exact wording, but the idea was, he can only be pushed back if the number of dice rolled against him is greater than the number he rolls, ie: one Dwarf against an Orc won't be pushed back; one Dwarf against an Orc + spear backup will be; one Dwarf that is shielding against an Orc + spear backup won't be...etc.

I had some others in mind as well.

By the book, just the High Men and Noldor and possibly some others that do look huge. All orc kind should be downgraded a level, you throw your Uruks in the bin and orcs become Uruks and Goblns orcs, there should not be a noticable difference between orc and goblin as thats just a film thing, goblins are orcs.

You have no have Mr. Average at S3 or the important D6 will become almost worthless.

Yes, I was thinking the distinction is artificial, they should all be Orcs, but you could still have different profiles for small, medium and large.



I agree, the D6 becomes a problem.

Not saying I want to do this, but what if we made the new "Mr Average" S4, D4? Then a fully armoured model is D7. Do you think that would affect the game mechanics in a negative way, if at all? S2 troops (goblins/small orcs, hobbits) would have trouble, but the backstabber rule can help.

So, if a Dwarf was fighting an Orc, and the Orc won, would it be the Orc who would got pushed back?

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

Ehhm, Dwarves with strenght 2? cough cough, No really are you kidding, Dwarves are stonger than men.... well maybe not stonger than Numenoreans but still stronger than regular men...

I´m for giving Numenoreans, High-Elves...Noldor that is eh?, Half-Orcs and Dwarves strnght 4

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I am the Mouth of Sauron, here him speak'

What's your source for this?

Okey, well I don´t remember the books so well anymore, but really Dwarves were stronger than men both physically and mentally, although they were depicted as whimps in the Hobbit I do recall Gimli being quite a powerful warrior...? or is the Peter Jackson vision playing tricks with me?

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I am the Mouth of Sauron, here him speak'

Yes. I'm in the middle of reading the books now. Sure, they were tough and strong for their size, but ... for their size.

Heh, if you put it that way. Other thing that popps into my head is that they had wars with elves, which they would have surely lost if they had not been skilled fighters....

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I am the Mouth of Sauron, here him speak'

of course dwarves are fairly strong. They normally go around wearing very heavy armour/ an large array of axes for throwing/2 handed ones/normal ones etc. You cant carry all that without being fairly strong. As far as i remember dwarves and elves were both far more skillful than men due to being an elder race. Dwarves were the stronger, tougher and more resilient of the two while the elves were the more skillful, longer living and terrifying to the forces of evil.

Men meanwhile are a new upstart race. Yes they existed in the first age but only the numenorians were any use at that time and it was not because of their strength but because they was more of them than elves but they were more skillful than orcs. All other men, and even most numenorians in the 3rd age would still be weaker than an elf or dwarf in the 3rd age but there is more of them. Men are the middle ground between numbers and skill, orcs and elves.

Personally i would vote for dwarves, uruks, noldor and elite men as being strength 4. But my view of what uruks are seem to differ to yours. I believe uruks are the half me/half orc mix while i think that you think of uruks as big orcs

...in PJ movies. In the book Gimli only had one axe.



What's your source for this? Why would Gimli not want to tackle the Dunlendings at Helm's Deep, but had no problem with the Orcs and Uruk Hai? His quote is in a different By the Book thread.



And they are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruk-hai

I would say that it could be debatable how Dwarves' strength were, and I can say that after some reading and thinking it could go either ways.

raising the ceiling to 7S instead of the current 6S and the average from 3S to 4S coulde work but not without side effects to the game system that I don't know if we can handle.

but again with what Mouth-of-Sauron mentioned, why thinking of just what Gimli thought instead of consulting the middle-earth history. They had the courage to fight the Elves on their own lands and won.

raise the average or not, hobbits should be at the lowest levels alone, goblins are definitely more strong than hobbits at least by their life style and their constant waring even among themselves.

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OFTENTIME,THE SHADOWS SERVE NOT ONLY TO CONCEAL THOSE WHO WISH TO DO EVIL,BUT ALSO PROTECT THOSE WHO SEEK TO DO GOOD

Perhaps it would be easier to first come to an agreement and make a comparison of Strength between the Races? Anywhere he's my opinion with those at the top being stronger than any below...

(Strongest=4+)
... Ents
... Trolls
... Eagles
... Half-Trolls

(Strong=4)
... Numenorians, Arnor before the Fall, Gondorians of Minas Tirith & Dol Amroth, Rohirrim
... Uruk-Hai and Half-Orcs
... Wargs
... Easterlings
... Noldor

(Average=3)
... Dunlendings, Haradrim
... Dwarves
... Orcs
... Spiders
... Fiefdom & Militia Gondorians, Men of Bree and Dale
... Sindar & Silvan Elves

(Weak=2)
... Goblins

(Weakest=1)
... Hobbits