Re: Fwd: FW: (TFT) Gandalf Falls

[Peter von Kleinsmid <pvk@oz.net>]

At 12:27 PM 11/4/03 -0600, David Michael Grouchy II wrote:
> ...
>   Well this view of it does cover more of the whole scope of the 
> encounter.  I bet that would be a kickin solo adventure.  "Fight the 
> balrog from the middle of cavern lake, through the entire mines, all the 
> way to the top of the mountain."
>   But I was left with the impresion that Gandalf the Grey didn't shuffle 
> off this mortal coil untill after he 'smote his (the balrog's) ruin on 
> the side of the mountain.  But yes.  Falling that far, and running for 
> three days are super hero type events.  I wonder how a GM could represent 
> this.
> Gandalf starts in the lake with 3 fatigue (from inpact), and Aragorn and 
> the boys end the three days run with 3 fatigue.  I mean in TFT rules this 
> would put them all closer to death.

I think you need some extreme mechanics to represent Gandalf's fall and 
battle - something like, he's a spirit whose physical manifestation has 
high DR, high damage capacity, and regenerates. Even Tolkien didn't try to 
detail it, as it was definitely supernatural.

For the 3-day run, I would tend to say things like:

1) It was an exaggeration. They did take breaks and naps.
2) Dwarves have super-Human endurance.
3) Dwarves have sub-human stride length. TFT combat rules to the contrary, 
they don't run that fast, even if they can run for a long time.
4) From 2 & 3, it follows that Aragorn ("Strider") and Legolas didn't need 
to run. "Strider" was used to marching for days, and Legolas was also one 
of these "Human, Plus" Elves, so they were just doing pressed marches.

In sum, they just went as fast as they could, and they were all in 
extremely good shape.

It reminds me, though, of one GM who had run a game for a fairly long time 
with fairly powerful fantasy adventures going on. After a break, he decided 
to re-cast the campaign some years later, with a much more toned-down power 
levels, explaining that the adventures that had been played before, were 
actually "embellished" versions of what had actually happened. An 
imaginative way to deal with a growing interest in toned-down situations, 
and a game system that was starting to get out-of-balance from powerful 
PC's (it wasn't TFT, BTW).

PvK
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