I'm back! Hope everyone had a great Holiday season!

May 2017 be good to you all!

Some thoughts on recent events:

The Spider Seige was a ton of fun!  The preparation scenes were cool, the battle was by far and away the hardest we've had, but had plenty for everyone to do.  I particularly like the way the attercops shifted from being active threats to cutting off or retreat once the hunters showed up - it made the fight on the second floor a lot more tactically interesting.  

The ending was obviously a deus ex machina, but that's hardly out of step with the source material.  It would've been satisfying to drive Tauler off all by ourselves, but it feels like we sort of earned it by staying alive as long as we did.  

Finally, I want to make it clear that I don't blame Tom and Bandy did getting us into an unnecessary fight.   I blame Grimbeorn.  I had that negotiation with Tauler, and then he had to stick his great foot in it.  Everything we just suffered is entirely his fault and he got exactly what he deserved.  

Oh hey guys....soo......that was some fight we had...

Hey now, all he did was say Shoo! and the spider left, I believe that's what we wanted.     He knew that it would be futile (though admittedly tempting) to fight the spider.  There will be an "I informed you thusly" in Beorning fashion coming for sure. 

Quote from: tomcat on Jan 13, 2017, 11:06 AM I am going to allow for one more round of character interaction.

I'm still planning to do this, but am having trouble finding the time at the moment.  Hopefully later today (your time).

Doug,
Woodland Realm idea. My thought is to take the Gem I found in the Millfort and have Ormal place the enchantment "Light of the Stars"  on it. Page 80 Heart of the Wild. Take a look and let me know what you think. I am not sure that this is an enhancement or not, it kinda seems like it would be, so if need be I'll activate it later when I raise my Valour.

Give me until tonight or tomorrow, guys.

I am still pondering the next scene with Arbogast's revelations.

Doug, I didn't mean to throw your plans into a spin.  If it's too much trouble, let me know and I'll just retcon my post. 

No, it's good. I like the new twist.

I just need to think how I want to put it into play - long term. I mean, right now, some Wandering Elves were told that the Woodmen have an Elven Lamp. It might take a while for them to bring it back to the Lamps of Ormal.

Quote from: Telcontar on Jan 17, 2017, 12:43 PMDoug,
Woodland Realm idea. My thought is to take the Gem I found in the Millfort and have Ormal place the enchantment "Light of the Stars"  on it. Page 80 Heart of the Wild. Take a look and let me know what you think. I am not sure that this is an enhancement or not, it kinda seems like it would be, so if need be I'll activate it later when I raise my Valour.

DONE! Ormal imbued the power without your need to spend the advance.

The Stone of Ardillon [pronounced Ar-di-LON]
A gem of intricate cut that shines with an inner light - enough to cast light out in a 5' radius around the holder.

[1 increase] The Light of the Stars: Ormal bestowed this blessing of Elbereth upon the stone.

By spending a point of Hope, Bandy may cause the light in the stone to burn with the pure light of the stars. This light flares for a limited time - a number of rounds equal to Bandy's Wisdom rating and a radius equal to 5' plus the number of feet equal to Bandy's Wisdom rating. While it burns, creatures of the Enemy cannot engage the bearer in close combat unless they spend 3 Hate Points, nor any around him within the radius of light, unless they spend 1 Hate point. Once the Light of the Stars goes out, the stone can be lit up again only after a number of minutes equal to Bandy's Wisdom, and at the cost of one point of Hope.

Oh yeah! Who needs armor now! You gotta really hate him now!

Narration to follow.  Long day has been long. 

There has been some criticism of the Interaction mechanic on the G+ page for the TOR game. I would like to say however, that Doug's handling of our interaction with Thranduil is probably a great example of how it should be done. There is was no tyranny of the dice, but our level of success was determined by how many success we had. As an AAR comment I would say that its better to roll the dice first and then use them to describe what you are doing so that you can incorporate the die roll into the interaction instead of dropping a Cicero like argument and then having it have no effect.

Either way, great job to everyone.

Agreed.  One question I had is whether there was a particular reason for the target numbers to be higher than average.  Is Thranduil just hard to get through to? 

Great question. Doug, care to peel back the curtain?

Tolerance level makes sense.TN 14 is an average TN which would mean Thranduil's interaction with us was inherently harder all around because we werent elves and there was a cultural barrier. However, some approaches worked better than others because of his character.

I wonder, how does this stay challenging otherwise as we accrue skill dice?