So, starting fresh:
Skip to the end of the post for the download link to the fully complete campaign system. Otherwise, stay a while and listen.
Let me just say that this system is in no way, shape or form balanced....yet

Preview:
(download files for full rules and images)
No additional things required to play, just your models!
Recommended players: 2-4
Intro
Play through the major battles of the LOTR movies, one after another, gaining Xp, items and abilities as you progress. Predetermined scenarios are played out linearly with a Standby Phase in between.

Each Good player controls an equal # of members of the fellowship, recording their items, abilities, spells, experience and wounds that gets carried over from battle to battle. Secondary Heroes (Eomer/Theoden) assigned as they enter the campaign. Record sheets must be kept for these heroes as well. Control cannot change hands once a hero is assigned.

Evil players record character sheets as they arise and track total kills per scenario to verify Good sides XP points. Evil heroes follow the same rules as good heroes (stat carryover, items/spell use…etc).

Standby Phase- In between scenarios heroes can use abilities, items, or magic to affect the group or game world. Heroes can use one ability, item or spell each and only on their current group. Rolls for spells need to be made and will deducted. Any spell that heals, buffs or restores stats can be cast during this phase.

Difficulty
Easy- Heroes who die in a scenario have a good chance to recover with just a wound and a low chance to recover fully or die. Might, Will and Fate will fully refresh to beginning stats after scenarios. Roll on the wound chart for each died hero.
Normal- Dead heroes remain dead for the rest of the campaign. Might, Will and Fate each have d3-1 pts refreshed after scenarios. Dont roll on the hero wound chart, hero automatically removed from campaign.
Hard- Dead heroes remain dead for the rest of the campaign and Might, Will and Fate never recover except through consumables, spells and abilities. Dont roll on the hero wound chart, hero automatically removed from campaign.

Campaign Goals
The campaign continues along the predetermined path regardless of if the Ring is lost or all members of the fellowship are dead. The Ring is lost if Frodo dies. If the ring is lost than Sauron returns and can take part in any major battles in addition to the regular unit detachment. The goal is then to kill him and retake the ring, needing at least 1 remaining Hobbit to hold and destroy it. If no Hobbits remain then the Good side can only achieve a draw. The Campaign is lost if the realm of man falls, consisting of Minas Tirith and Helmsdeep. It is won if the Ring is destroyed. It is a draw if the Ring can’t be destroyed and one of the two holds still stand. Optionally, to resolve a draw, players could recreate the Last Alliance scenario with era-adjusted units. Winner takes all.

Good Side Skill Trees Preview:


Power Point Trees Preview:



Hero Leveling
Heroes gain XP equal to the point’s value of any model killed. Multi wound models have their points shared to whoever removed the wound but are only awarded when the model is fully killed. Heroes that die in a scenario but live do not gain any exp that round and lose all progress towards their next level. Abilities marked with a star (*) on the skill tree are abilities that can be used during the standby phase. Each time a hero levels they gain one skill point which can be used to choose another box on the skill tree. Each hero begins the game at level 1, with 0 XP and 1 skill point to allocate.

Spoils of War- Heroes can take equipment/mounts from dead foes following the normal rules. Other than mounts, they carry over between scenarios and heroes can permanently drop them at any time. Evil heroes can loot and use any items that were in a slain hero’s inventory at the time of death.

Each hero has an inventory stash of unlimited size to hold consumable items. Heroes are awarded these items after successfully completing a scenario. Awards can only ever be added to the inventory of a hero who participated in that scenario. Heroes can use items on themselves or members of their current group.

Hero wounds
At the end of each scenario roll 2d6 on this table for each hero reduced to 0 wounds:
2-5 Permanently Dead
6 Lost in Battle
7 Arm wound
8 Leg wound
9 Just a scratch
10 Flesh wound
11 Arrow to the knee
12 Full Recovery

Power points
Power point exp is awarded for kills made by friendly units based on the points of the killed model. Evil side gains exp from all kills made by their units, friend or foe. Power points not on cool down can be used at any point during your turn.

Complete Campaign Package Download Link:
https://www.mediafire.com/?bc70owctt7slrhq

This looks really promising! Keep posting your progress, because I would definitely play this! Also, don't be nervous... BE PROUD!

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Over the field rang his clear voice calling: "Death! Ride, ride to ruin and the world's ending!"

I would definitely play this aswell, looks great for scenario's (no more boring captains) and in campaign.
Keep up the good work

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The men of Dale are fighting a battle with my brush at the moment.
3 guys will never know the grey again... rest in peace

Thanks for the words of encouragement!

I was worried about it being an incoherent mess since I tend to fill in the blanks my self as I read it over.

Anyways, I updated the skill tree file and campaign system file to be a little bit more organized. Should help in the reading and understanding a bit. The skills list was an absolute mess before, much better now.

Thanks again.

Organisation would be useful, cause for the skills you roll a D10 or? (if you make it more organised it could be used by other members as well)

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The men of Dale are fighting a battle with my brush at the moment.
3 guys will never know the grey again... rest in peace

The skill trees use pathing rather than random dicing. So you start off in your class category and move downwards,sideways or diagonally. Its on the last page of the Campaign system .doc under "Navigating the Skill Tree".

To quote from it:

"Navigating the Skill Tree
Begin by determining the hero’s starting class, either by following lore or choosing your own. Lore wise, Gimli would be a Guardian, Aragorn/Boromir a Captain and Legolas a Hunter. Each hero then starts in any of the three subclasses of that general class. With each level up you get one point to move either sideways, downwards or diagonally in any direction; moving only 1 box and either furthering your starting class or expanding into a new one. In order to get any skill in the tree a hero must first select the preceding stat point. No cherry picking skills!"

I forgot to mention that starting at level 1 you get a skill point to choose a skill, which for most of the classes means getting a stat point of some kind. Gonna update the main file soon.

This is good feedback though because I knew it was gonna be hard to understand but I tried my best.

If there is anything else slightly confusing or just flat-out mind boggling please let me know so I can fix it.

Thanks.

A really great idea to add RPG-style components to a campaign! This gives a lot of food for thought, and makes me wonder if some aspects of this could be implemented in our LotR campaign, too.

Personally, im a big fan of RPGs so I had to try something like this. It would work well in any type of campaign with a lot of tweaking and context adjusting. I was contemplating a free-roam map and army system with resources etc. Three army leaders per person and heroes use the skill tree and infantry use the ascension rules from battle companies.

The hardest part is the skills. It took about 90% of the work time. The second part is making it meaningful enough and in depth so the campaign is more than just a string of battles. That's my biggest gripe with most campaigns, it just feels like a string of battle rather than an epic war leading to a cataclysmic finale. With those 2 things hammered out the system can be applied to any campaign type and any game system(40k, fantasy etc..)

In the end I chose to do a story based campaign because it desperately needs the re-playability. I love the journey of the Fellowship and attaching an RPG experience to it, if done right, puts you right in the action.

Unfortunately, the "done right" part is quite difficult to do.

The idea of a free-roam map is nice. Back in the Battle Games magazines there was a campaign like that, a map of Isengard, Rohan, Gondor and Mordor overlaid with a hexagonal grid. You had to roll dice for moving across the map, difficulty of the roll was dependent on the type of terrain you were trying to cross. Resource points were granted for controlling certain key points on the map. I think it is still possible to find the rules and map for this campaign on the internet if you search around a bit.

@Laevos- That sounds good and definitely something to search for. I dont like the idea of random movement though. I think the game has enough random without it but I like the difficult terrain modifiers.

Update 2: Skill Tree!
To help clarify some things here is a (very poor) visual representation on the skill trees. Each level gives you 1 point and you advance in any direction of your choosing, just follow the lines.

For now, heres the skill tree for just the Hunter, Captain and Guardian as they are all linked together:


File added to main post and this post for download.

Hobbit, Wizard and evil tree coming soon!

Edit: Cant see anything once its uploaded to photobucket so going to have to upload it. Sorry for the external link, the file size is 100 kb too big
Skill tree pic:
https://www.mediafire.com/?fcxb57j38amt24f

i will definitely try this out. seems like a good game for a rainy day... when you finish could you post an entire update so we can get the finished rules as a whole?...great work so far! keep it up

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2014 Oathtaker (5 Points)

My WIP
http://www.one-ring.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=27391=50&t=27391

Very interesting work - thanks for sharing.
A long time ago, one possible area for the Awards/competitions was scenarios and campaign ideas (I still have my drafts as there were a few ideas floating in the necrotic void that is my brain). It had to be something that would fit into the Middle-earth cultures, technology, geography and known history (so no rocket-powered super-hero wizards). Very nice to see some new ideas. Great work on the diagrams (I thought they were spider webs at first glance - now I cannot get the dratted Spiderman cartoon theme out of my head).

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Published ebooks:
Instrument of the Empire
A Note of Defiance
Phantom Ships, Ghost Flotilla
More to come!

@Druzhag Ya I will definitely post a complete package when done. Thats quite a bit ways off as I cant balance test it till I can get some games in. Which is probably the summer at the earliest.

Wizard and Hobbit Skill Tree!


external link for download yet again :
https://www.mediafire.com/?i5ovubbrr5cvbfb

Evil Tree coming soon!

I really like the skill trees. In Battle Companies there was always the problem of random special rules for your characters. You could end up getting the two-handed weapon rule for characters that can't even use those weapons. A skill tree ensures that you always get something useful for the role you have in mind.
A small spelling correction: you might want to correct Wizard in your tree. The only 'Wizzard' I know is called Rincewind and he is not very heroic.

I agree, Id just like to add that I also like the fact that it forces a decision on the player. Meaningful choices like this adds depth,re-playability and involvement in the campaign.


Fixed. I swear I normally know how to spell wizzhard .

Anyways, I finished off the rest of the campaign and redid the original post. The download link contains all the finished files organized in a more coherent manner. Also added a survey to help see where im at with people understanding it.

Take a look and let me know what I can do to package it better or to improve the rules.

Thanks.

Skill Tree Selection Example- Level 7 Gimli
Whole skill tree:

Zoomed In Skill Tree:


The 2 images are the same, just 1 image is a view with the whole skill tree and 1 is zoomed into only the relevant section.

The blue highlighted skills are skills that he has chosen, marked at what level he chose them at. Hes level 7 so has chosen 7 skills.

That should fully clear up any issues on the skill trees.