Decipher's Lord of the Rings RPG

Decipher has done a great job on The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game. It's easy to learn, fun to play, and in general perfectly suited for roleplaying on J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. However, there are certain weaknesses, some obvious, some a matter of personal taste. In our humble opinion, most of the problems we have addressed in The Heren Turambarion's Compendium arose from the very short playtesting phase the Core Book originally underwent (it's certainly no coincidence that no playtesters are mentioned in the Core Book's credits). From our point of view, this resulted in a lack of play-balance. On Decipher's official Lord of the Rings RPG message-board (which are, of course, offline nowadays), many Narrators and players alike have been discussing these problems right from the first publication of the Core Book - and quite a large number have been officially acknowledged by Decipher. In the Heren Turambarion's Compendium, you'll find a large collection of optional rule suggestions which provide possible solutions for these problems or offer entirely new possibilities. Many of these rules either redefine the overall power level of the game or suggest some new, fun mechanics (e.g., critical strikes). Others simply shed additional light on poorly covered issues such as flaws, equipment, creature movement, or experience awards. So, even if you're perfectly pleased with Decipher's original work, you might find some interesting contents that'll hopefully enjoy to add to your game!

The Heren Turambarion's Compendium

The revised 2nd edition of the Heren Turambarion's Compendium comprises 56 pages of optional rule suggestions and official errata that add a lot of excitement and realism to any chronicle by introducing new or rebalancing existing game mechanics, especially in the field of character creation. Most of the optional rule suggestions work independently. So you can simply pick the ones you like and discard the ones you don't deem appropriate for your type of chronicle. Don't miss to check out the Narrator's Tools presented below as well - they'll be a great help if you choose to incorporate some of the Compendium's options in your game.

The Compendium adds material on various topics such as attribute generation, courage, spells and spell specialties, initiative, combat manoeuvres, combat pacing, resisting fear, horses, and healing. It also introduces eight new types of fell beasts and five new items of wondrous magic (originally presented on the LotR Message Board).

Download the Heren Turambarion's Compendium here.

In detail, the Compendium II features:

• • Tables and rules for resolving critical strikes: for armed, unarmed, and ranged combat attacks, there is a set of critical strike tables for injuring six distinct parts of the body in three severity levels, each differing in damage and lethality. The vivid descriptions of your attack's effects are closely related to the Coda System's rules for extra success in combat and help to speed up combat resolution quite a lot

  • For damage-dealing spell attacks, there is a critical fire damage table that comes along with rules on how to use spells with the ranged combat skill

  • The "Mind" spell specialty and new rules on learning spells

  • Thirty-six additional flaws, carefully tailored to match Decipher's Coda System

  • Five pages of additional equipment and gear, both ordinary and obscure, weapons, armours, and herbs. Weapons feature a new characteristic, the initiative modifier, and their damage codes have been totally revised. All prices have been altered to establish a historically more realistic price structure. For instance, a pony now does no longer cost merely four times as much as an ordinary meal - but it still costs 4 silver pennies in Bree!

  • A new method for generating attribute scores, and new guidelines on spending Courage

  • A complex, yet easy to use set of tables and guidelines for awarding experience points based on TNs and TN Equivalents

  • A detailed and colourful weapon fumble and spell failure table that can be used whenever double ones are rolled

  • An all-new initiative system

  • Smoothed guidelines on movement and encumbrance, including tables and formulas for determining your character's exact height and weight

  • Replacement movement rates for the creatures presented in Fell Beasts and Wondrous Magic (Jeff Tidball of Decipher admitted himself that something went quite wrong with them)

  • Detailed discussions of Lore skills, travelling, starvation, and other skills and tests (new!)

  • Rebalanced advancement pick costs for skills, edges and reactions that offer a flexible, yet effective way to redefine the overall power level of the game (revised)

  • The 'Hit and Run' combat manoeuvre and revised or new play rules on various other combat-related questions, such as attack speed modifiers or size and weapon reach (new!)

  • The Outdoorsman basic order, a variant of the barbarian also available to Elves and Dúnedain who want to become rangers on the long run

  • More balanced descriptions of and restrictions for order abilities and edges, as well as some entirely new edges

  • Vigour, a new hybrid reaction used to withstand the wearying effects of magic, and other rules concerning magic

  • Alternative guidelines for calculating attribute modifiers and reactions

  • Revised racial adjustments, additional racial abilities, background and order packages

  • Rules for falling unconscious due to lost wound levels

  • Rules for low-powered chronicles

  • Guidelines on languages and language skill ranks

  • Eight new types of fell beasts, and five new items of wondrous magic

  • And many other specs…

The Narrator's Tools Package

The Narrator's Tools package, newly compiled in October 2010, contains:

• • Printable Tags for your Narrator's screen, showing the tables for resolving critical strikes and fumbles as introduced in the Compendium, as well as the revised weapon and armour tables

  • The LotR Hero's Scroll, a Microsoft Excel-based, four-page character sheet which makes character creation and advancing much easier and faster. It automatically calculates most of the statistics you'll ever need to have at hand, including attribute modifiers, reactions, skill affinity bonuses, and total skill bonuses. The Hero's Scroll has been specially created for use with the optional rules introduced in the Heren Turambarion's Compendium II, but it works equally well if you ignore or delete these references. It also features an adapted version of Decipher's official step-by-step character generation guideline and provides enough space for all skills, spells, items and mounts you may ever wish to acquire.

  • On the LotR Combat Status Sheet, you can record all necessary statistics for the fast resolution of combat encounters, including the TNs a character must beat in order to inflict critical strikes. This NPC spreadsheet also provides an individual wound monitor for up to nine combatants, and a quick reference chart for 'one-(or more)-success-opponents'.

  • If you choose to use the Heren Turambarion's rules on experience awards presented in the Compendium, pass one of your players the LotR Experience Awards Sheet on which all events that warrant an experience point gain can be recorded.

  • The Heren Turambarion's LotR Alternate Combat System offers a convenient, easy-to-use alternative for combat resolution. Under the normal Coda System's combat rules, a battle with a lot of combatants (but just too few to make use of the rules for unit combat) may take quite a long time to resolve, especially if they choose to parry once or more during a round and thus maybe virtually neutralising each other.

  • Colin Chapman's Name Aids provides an extensive list of typical names for all peoples native to north-western Middle-earth

  • Finally, the tools package provides a Player Character Overview sheet for recording the most important statistics and skills of your group's heroes, as well as an Initiative Overview sheet with which you can easily keep track of the turn order during encounters with multiple combatants

Download the Heren Turambarion's Narrator's Tools package here.

Dwarf-holds of Middle-earth

Chris Seeman, author of the Dwarves of Middle-earth book contained in Decipher's marvellous Moria boxed set (a must-have!), has approved the following map that presents his interpretation of the locations of various Dwarf-strongholds of Middle-earth. The map was drawn by Thomas Morwinsky and first published in Other Hands 29/30 (July 2000). It is based on Pete Fenlon's beautiful continental map published in ICE's MERP series. Note that the island in the great northern central bay is an exact duplicate of Columbia Games' Hârn. Although Thomas' map is not particularly close to the sketch by J.R.R. Tolkien presented in HoME IV, The Shaping of Middle-earth, p.251, Chris - as the editor of Other Hands - used this very map for the sketch he submitted to Decipher. Note that the names of the various Dwarf-tribes (e.g., Blacklocks, Stonefoots, or Broadbeams) which appear in the legend below do not occur in the history of Dwarves as outlined by Chris (due to licence issues). They are taken from HoME XII, The Peoples of Middle-earth, p.301 and 322 (note 24).

Legend

1 - Mount Gundabad (originally named Gunduzbad by the Dwarves of Durin's folk)

2 - Nogrod (Kh. Tumunzahar, home of Uri's folk, the Firebeards) and Belegost (Kh. Gabilgathol, home of Linnar's folk, the Broadbeams)

3 - Moria (Kh. Khazad-dûm, the great delving of Durin's folk, the Longbeards)

4 - Gamil-nâla under Mt. Bundushar (collapsed ancestral home of Sindri's folk, the Ironfists)

5 - Kibil-tarag (ancient home of Thulin's folk, the Stiffbeards)

6 - Nargubraz (lost home of Var's folk, the Blacklocks)

7 - Baraz-lagil (home of Vigdis's folk, the Stonefoots)

8 - Barazbizar ("Red Valley", the original name of Carn Dûm when Linnar's folk delved there)

9 - Nurunkhizdín (mansion near the Inland Sea of Rhûn, founded by those of Sindri's folk who sided with Sauron in the War of the Last Alliance)

10 - Erebor, the Lonely Mountain

11 - Barukkhizdín in the Iron Hills

12 - The Mines of the Grey Mountains: Mahalkukhizdín, Thakalgund, Zeleg-ubraz, and Danuk-khizdín

13 - Naragul (fastness of the travelling warriors of Var's folk in the Far South)