Decent house rules PDF?

Leonardis · **Joined:** Wed Oct 05, 2011 4:06 pm **Posts:** 891

Does anyone have a decent set of tried and tested house rules in one document? Either PDF or word that I could use?

I really fancy picking up on the WotR again, but want to see some HR's to play test and see if the balance is correct.

Thanks in advance for any assistance :-)

Leonardis

adragonsfang · **Joined:** Fri Dec 23, 2011 6:37 pm **Posts:** 25

Xelee's House rules are pretty good and they fit on an A4 sheet easy. Just copy and paste them and you've got a really useful list.

http://www.one-ring.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=88&t=19705

White Tower of Ecthelion · **Posted:** Sun Nov 09, 2014 7:32 pm

Hi Leonardis,

We need to put together some sort of Google group for the small band of WotR stalwarts that want to nurture a balanced version of this game for ourselves and gaming buddies who want to join in.

Have you looked at these blogs. Xelee has the most "baked" set of house rules, in so far at they can be covered in one page of notes:

First Xelee's post from this forum...

http://www.one-ring.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=88&t=19705

http://jaows.blogspot.com/

http://roughwotr.blogspot.com/search/label/WOTR%20Houserules%20Project

http://lotrwarofthering.blogspot.com/

http://wessexcodex.wordpress.com/

http://bairwaroftheringproject.blogspot.com/

Hope this is helpful to you! Hope you're encouraged to find your fun with it.

WToE

daersalon · **Joined:** Wed Mar 16, 2011 1:34 am **Posts:** 265

There indeed seems to be increasing convergence of ideas, albeit independently. Some separate discussions and cross-pollination would be useful. We were looking (independently) at a spreadsheet recalculation of heroes, similar to another poster in this forum.

I looked at Xelee's suggestions before, but they 'tamper' too much with the core mechanics of the game for my taste, as I think WotR plays very well as it is, but the main issue is 'balancing' (i.e. points). That is - a lot of Xelee's changes try to address imbalances by rule changes but using the existing points in the books, i.e. trying to squeeze and reshape the foot to fit the shoe, when instead we need a better shoe to fit a perfectly fine foot. After all the rules in the rulebook were playtested (usually in larger set-piece battles/scenarios where the mechanics were tested) however the points values look like an afterthought based on SBG-thinking, and not playtested. Well, that is my feeling.

We have just 2 or 3 House Rules (besides points changes, like cheaper fates, Fortunes, and upgrades like Banners etc):

-Courage Tests are now 11+ (not 10+)
-Glaives count as 2-handed weapons but without the -1 Fight.

The first makes courage tests trickier, and gives value to all the rules abilities and spells, and fates, and now Courage tests feel more important with the emphasis given them in the rules. Instead of a minor annoyance which are rarely failed.

The second... well Elves needed some help, and +1 fight seemed very mundane for such well crafted weapons.

Leonardis · **Joined:** Wed Oct 05, 2011 4:06 pm **Posts:** 891

Cheers guys, this is all really great stuff :-)

Bairchoro · **Posted:** Tue Nov 11, 2014 11:46 pm

daersalon wrote:

they 'tamper' too much with the core mechanics of the game for my taste, as I think WotR plays very well as it is, but the main issue is 'balancing' (i.e. points). That is - a lot of Xelee's changes try to address imbalances by rule changes but using the existing points in the books, i.e. trying to squeeze and reshape the foot to fit the shoe, when instead we need a better shoe to fit a perfectly fine foot. After all the rules in the rulebook were playtested (usually in larger set-piece battles/scenarios where the mechanics were tested) however the points values look like an afterthought based on SBG-thinking, and not playtested. Well, that is my feeling.

My group agrees completely with this … that's why we were attempting to leave the stat lines and special rules alone and adjust points based upon the stats that are assigned to a profile. As mentioned above, you can find the calculations and several examples up on my blog … http://bairwaroftheringproject.blogspot.com, as well as some of the others listed above …

I agree that we should all start "banding" together to normalize the ruleset across the community - but that may be a bigger effort than we may realize, until there is a common playable mechanism available.

Xelee · **Posted:** Wed Dec 31, 2014 9:22 pm

I know houserules are inherently a matter of taste so will not please everyone.

To give a bit of background though: The houserules took the route of leaving the points alone because one or two threads got started to rework points so they'd be 'correct' and languished and went nowhere. That's because this is a lot of work. So what do Do?

Well the perfect shouldn't be the enemy of the good. I also wanted other players to be able to use it easily and still use their original book as much as possible. So I just thought through what seemed the most efficient way to implement changes and did up a 1 page thing so it would be like adding a faq to your rulebook

Leonardis · **Joined:** Wed Oct 05, 2011 4:06 pm **Posts:** 891

Time to build my next army! Anyone played with Hobbit figures?

Hurin_it · **Joined:** Tue Jul 28, 2015 8:02 pm **Posts:** 180

daersalon wrote:

We have just 2 or 3 House Rules (besides points changes, like cheaper fates, Fortunes, and upgrades like Banners etc).

I have seen (on Wessexcodex) that you are also working upon the Hard to Kill! system, that still represents another unresolved matter of unbalance. And that you are attempring the way of the Resilience 3.
Have you tried, istead, to upgrade:

- Hard Hard to to Kill!, from 6 to 9;
- Very Hard to to Kill!, from 7 to 12 (or to 11)?

What's your opinion about?

daersalon · **Joined:** Wed Mar 16, 2011 1:34 am **Posts:** 265

Its been a while since I dipped my toe into WotR land.

But from recollection R3 monsters was better, but still not quite right. in some cases made thinsg too hard (some only). It was a simple fix, easy to test, but after a few games felt something different is (unfortunately) needed.

I think the hard to kill table should be more along the lines you suggest, and that there may be a brand new table between hard to kill, and extremely hard to kill.

There is a huge disparency between the two existing tables. XH2K monsters stick around forever, while H/VH2k monsters die to an elven sneeze.

Hurin_it · **Joined:** Tue Jul 28, 2015 8:02 pm **Posts:** 180

OK thanks. I hope you will discover again interest in this game - it's a really great and funny game system.

I'm currently (but slowly) testing the following new tables:

1) DIE HARD!
If a Monster with this rule suffers hits equal to its Resilience characteristic, do not remove it as a casualty. Instead, the opponent rolls a D6 on the following table, adding one to the result for each wound counter the monster has accrued.

Die hard! Table
1 No Effect. The blow hits home, but the monster seems blithely unaware of the injury.
2-5 Flesh Wound. The attack cuts deep into the monster’s flesh. The monster gains a wound counter (use a coin or other suitable marker to represent this).
6-8 Debilitating Strike. The strike inflicts terrible damage. The monster gains two wound counters.
9+ Death Blow. The monster is slain outright ― remove it from the game.
If the Monster suffers enough hits to equal its Resilience several times over, roll a D6 for each. In addition, a model with the Extremely Die hard! rule that is shot at, but not slain, is driven back D3" for every Wound counter it gains as the result of the attack. If a natural 6 is rolled on the table, the attacker immediately rolls again and applies both results.

2) VERY DIE HARD!
If a model with this rule suffers hits equal to its Resilience characteristic, do not remove it as a casualty. Instead, the opponent rolls a D6 on the following table, adding one to the result for each wound counter the monster has accrued.

Very Die hard! Table
1-2 No Effect. The blow hits home, but the monster seems blithely unaware of the injury.
3-6 Flesh Wound. The attack cuts deep into the monster’s flesh. The monster gains a wound counter (use a coin or other suitable marker to represent this).
7-10 Debilitating Strike. The strike inflicts terrible damage. The monster gains two wound counters. 11+ Death Blow. The monster is slain outright ― remove it from the game.
If the model suffers enough hits to equal its Resilience several times over, roll a D6 for each. In addition, a model with the Very Die hard! rule that is shot at, but not slain, is driven back D3" for every wound counter it gains as the result of the attack. If a natural 6 is rolled on the table, the attacker immediately rolls again and applies both results.

3) EXTREMELY DIE HARD! = official Extremely Hard to kill! (table to 13)

Decent house rules PDF?

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